Steve James‘ inspiring new documentary, The Interrupters, is screening until the 31st January at The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) in Melbourne. Following a year in the lives of three dedicated individuals who try to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they themselves once employed, The Interrupters is a film which studies violence, but is ultimately about redemption.
Like with James’ multi award-winning documentary Hoop Dreams (1994), the documentary-maker is once again putting the focus on Chicago’s disenfranchised youth. With soaring rates of youth crime- crime stats show that in 2009 there were more casualties on Chicago streets than US military losses in Iraq and Afghanistan combined- James’ film looks at the work of an organisation called CeaseFire. Working without the help of lawmakers, CeaseFire aims to interrupt violence as it happens, on the street. They work on the notion that violence spreads like a communicable disease, and that stopping it at its source is the best antidote.
The interrupters of the films title are Ameena Matthews, Cobe Williams and Eddie Bocanegra. All three were formerly associated with gangs, with Ameena bringing special gravitas as the daughter of one of Chicago’s most notorious gang leaders, Jeff Fort. These ‘violence interrupters’ bring not only knowledge and understanding of the lifestyle, the violence and drugs, but also an ability to communicate on the street level, offering advice and adjudicating altercations amazingly without fear for their own safety.
Ameena Matthews
Initially inspired to make the documentary after reading a NYTimes story on CeaseFire by Alex Kotlowitz (the film’s producer), James and his team formed an amazing bond of trust with the organisation and specifically with Matthews, Williams and Bocanegra, who as well as being their subjects and guides, were also their protectors on the street. The films heart-felt honesty and the natural likeability of the subjects, stopping the film from being simply an exercise in depressing reporting.
Front L-R: Cobe Williams, Eddie Bocanegra and Tio Hardiman
As well as featuring the three interrupters, the film also interviews Gary Slutkin the founder and Executive director of CeaseFire and Tio Hardiman, the Director of CeaseFire Illinois. Slutkin, an epidemiologist who previously worked with the WHO battling infectious diseases in Africa, came up with the notion that a public health-based approach could be used to tackle violence in Chicago, and it was Hardiman’s idea to employ ‘violence interrupters’. As well as getting an insight into the work of CeaseFire, we also get to hear from the perpetrators and victims of violence, both of whom are counselled by the interrupters with equal care.
Ameena tries to counsel Capricia
There has been uproar about The Interrupters being left off the Oscars’ shortlist for Best Documentary this year, and rightly so. Unfortunately James is used to being snubbed by The Academy Awards, with Hoop Dreams also failing to make the shortlist when it was released, much to the surprise and chagrin of film pundits. The Interrupters offers a disturbing insight into youth violence, but also gives a message that allows for hope. The hope of course being the interrupters themselves who have turned their lives around. Ameena once a drug enforcer, now a charismatic community leader; Williams once in and out of jail, now a national trainer for CeaseFire, and convicted murderer Bocanegra now a mentor for children.
The Interrupters is screening exclusively at ACMI until 31 January 2012.
For more information and tickets, visit acmi.net.au
