Raising Bertie, a new film from debut director Margaret Byrne and Chicago’s award-winning documentary collective Kartemquin Films, will world premiere at Full Frame Documentary Festival in Durham, North Carolina on April 9, 2016. Set in Bertie County, a rural African American-led community in Eastern North Carolina, the film takes the viewer deep into the emotional lives of three young boys - Reginald “Junior” Askew, David “Bud” Perry, and Davonte “Dada” Harrell - as they face a number of challenges over six years as they grow into adults. All three will attend the world premiere. This raw and starkly poetic longitudinal cinéma vérité film weaves the young men’s stories together as they navigate unemployment, institutional racism, violence, first love, fatherhood, death, and estrangement from family members and mentors, all while trying to define their identities. Continued

Kartemquin Films is proud to reveal news of our co-production deal with Mara Films on Eating Up Easter, an in-progress documentary that was today announced as a selected project of the prestigious Hot Docs Forum, taking place over May 3-4 in Toronto during the 2016 Hot Docs festival. In Eating Up Easter the most isolated community in the Pacific uses lessons learned from their past to solve environmental and social challenges brought on by booming tourism and rapid development. Director Sergio Rapu, the only native Easter Islander to be actively working in production in an English speaking country, and his wife and producing partner Elena Rapu have been in production on the documentary since 2014. Now residing in Minneapolis, they brought the film to Chicago-based Kartemquin in 2015. Continued

Kartemquin joins many in Chicago and beyond in saluting the life and work of Dr. Quentin Young, a noted Hyde Park physician and pioneering activist, particularly on issues of segregation and a single payer system of healthcare. Dr. Young appears in our 1975 film, HSA Strike '75, which is about a 1975 strike - the largest and longest doctors' strike in US history - protesting working conditions at Cook County Hospital, which was the only public hospital in Chicago and where he was Chairman during an era where the hospital mostly served poor and uninsured patients. While Young had advised against the strike, he did not impose any disciplinary action against his staff, and was fired. He filed a lawsuit arguing that his termination was illegal because he was not informed of why he was fired, and was reinstated a month later. Continued

The Ashland Independent Film Festival will honor Kartemquin Films’ 50 years of creating high-quality, social-issue documentaries during the 15th annual AIFF on April 7-11, 2016. The festival, which features more than 90 films and dozens of special events across the town of Ashland, Oregon, will welcome special guests Kartemquin Artistic Director and co-founder Gordon Quinn, Emmy-nominated director Joanna Rudnick and Peabody Award-winning director Maria Finitzo. In celebration of Kartemquin’s 50th anniversary, the festival will screen a program of Kartemquin films directed by and about women, including the following films: Continued

In 2016, several organizations in Chicago and around the country will host a series of screenings and events to celebrate Kartemquin’s 50th anniversary. We also invite you to watch all our films for free, week by week, at http://watch.kartemquin.com. From today until next Friday, March 11th, the free KTQ50 film is Now We Live on Clifton (1974). Now We Live on Clifton follows 10 year old Pam Taylor and her 12 year old brother Scott around their multiracial West Lincoln Park neighborhood. The kids worry that they'll be forced out of the neighborhood they grew up in by the gentrification following the expansion of DePaul University. Continued

Three classic Kartemquin documentaries from 1974 probing issues of gentrification, race, youth, and poverty in the Chicago neighborhoods of Wicker Park, Pilsen, and Gage Park, will be showcased at 2pm on Saturday, March 12th at the Chicago Cultural Center’s Claudia Cassidy Theater. The free film screening and discussion, hosted by WTTW and the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, is part of a year-long celebration honoring the 50th anniversary of Kartemquin Films and the upcoming DVD release of The Kartemquin Collection Volume 4: The Collective Years. Continued

The 8th Annual Peace on Earth Film Festival, which presents Chicago with new international films that contribute to a culture of nonviolence, social justice and eco-balance, will honor Gordon Quinn and Kartemquin Films' 50 years of making films about people whose lives are most directly affected by social and political change. Continued

In the Game set to screen at SXSWedu in March, Chicago Latino Film Festival in April Grasshopper Film has acquired the VOD and non-theatrical rights to In the Game, a documentary following four years in the life of a girls’ soccer team at a Chicago inner city high school, from producers Kartemquin Films and Peabody-award-winning director Maria Finitzo (Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita). The deal comes ahead of In the Game screening at SXSWedu 2016 on March 7, and in a special presentation at the 2016 Chicago Latino Film Festival on April 19. Continued

In 2016, several organizations in Chicago and around the country will host a series of screenings and events to celebrate Kartemquin’s 50th anniversary. We also invite you to watch all our films for free, week by week, at http://watch.kartemquin.com. From today until next Friday, March 4th, the free KTQ50 film is Winnie Wright, Age 11 (1974). "When one family moves in, then the rest move out. One black family, then all the white families all move out. It's so dumb." - Winnie Wright at age 11. Winnie, the daughter of a steel worker and a teacher, lives in Gage Park, a Chicago neighborhood that is changing from white to black. Her family struggles with racism, inflation and a threatened strike, as Winnie learns what it means to grow up white, working class, and female. Continued

WTTW, Chicago's premier public television station, will broadcast The Trials of Muhammad Ali at 10pm on Thursday, February 25th as part of a year-long series honoring the 50th anniversary of not-for-profit Chicago documentary collective Kartemquin Films. Winner of Outstanding Historical - Long Form award at the 36th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards in September 2015, The Trials of Muhammad Ali covers Ali’s toughest bout: detailing how the boxing legend fought a potential five year prison sentence for refusing military service in Vietnam, risking his fame and fortune to follow his faith and conscience. Continued