Join “The Interrupters” — Eddie, Ameena and Cobe — and co-producers, Steve James and Alex Kotlowitz, for a social screening of “The Interrupters” — 2/20 at 830 p.m. ET
Join our live chat on “The Interrupters” on 2/15 at 1pm ET with co-producers Steve James and Alex Kotlowitz, violence interrupters Ameena Matthews and Eddie Bocanegra, and guest questioner Jason Deparle. You can leave a question now.
Award-winning director, producer, and co-editor of the critically acclaimed film Hoop Dreams, Steve James reflects on making The Interrupters, what he’s learned through the experience and what he hopes viewers will take away from the film.
“I’m most proud of when I see kids sitting on their porch on the streets, not worried about nobody,” says Tio Hardiman, the director of CeaseFire Illinois. “It just feels good when you see the kids running up to the ice cream truck, when you see a community coming back to normal.”
On Sept. 24, 2009, Derrion Albert, a 16-year-old honors student, was walking home from school when he found himself amidst a violent confrontation between two rival groups from his school.
“Chicago has always been notoriously known for street organization, crimes and murders and all that, but what’s so profound for me is to see that, as I’m growing up, that death is inevitable and we’re not afraid of it.”
Last night, filmmaker Steve James (Hoop Dreams) and “violence interrupter” Ameena Matthews were on Greater Boston, discussing their new documentary, “The Interrupters,” which will air on FRONTLINE on Feb. 14 at 9 pm.
On Feb. 14, FRONTLINE presents the television premiere of the award-winning documentary The Interrupters, the moving story of three dedicated “violence interrupters”—Ameena Matthews, Cobe Williams and Eddie Bocanegra—who, with bravado, humility and even humor, work to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they themselves once employed.
During one weekend in 2008, 37 people were shot in Chicago, seven of them fatally. It was the year Chicago became a posterchild city of America’s gang problem.