Cinema Guild Place Caring Hand Around ‘The Interrupters’

It terms of acquisitions, this Sundance Film Fest was one of the better ones in terms of volume (number of titles sold, not necessarily dollar amount) actually it was such a great fest that we’ve kind of forgotten that not all titles found a suitor. In the case of Steve James’ The Interrupters, the doc was tied up by PBS for a logical television showing in 2012 (personally I’m hoping for a longer two-parter version of what I saw in Park City) and now, it will benefit from what should be a grassroots theatrical release via The Cinema Guild folks. The doc which most probably receive some sort of edit from its Sundance cut, will be released sometime this summer.

Gist: This tells the moving and surprising stories of three “violence interrupters” – two men and a woman – who with bravado, humility and even humor try to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once employed.

Worth Noting: Prior to The Interrupters, James directed a 30 for 30 doc called, No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson.

Do We Care?: We caught this at Temple theatre in Park City and much like Hoop Dreams – this gets patrons emotionally invested in the characters and cheering for underdogs — I suppose what’s noteworthy here (and common in James’ work) is that the underdogs/heroes (the violence interrupters) are also coming from the same fabric as those who’ll have their lives changed for the better.