• Stevie Steve James

UPDATE, 8:45 AM: In a keynote speech at this evening, CEO said that the company is creating a scripted series with the team from Best Picture Oscar winner Spotlight. Without divulging many details, he said the untitled series will look at journalists breaking important stories. This is part of Participant’s expansion into producing TV content as reflected below.PREVIOUS, EXCLUSIVE, 8 AM: Participant Media is teaming with Hoop Dreams director on series America To Me, which is currently in production. This is the first unscripted project from Participant and follows a year in suburban Chicago’s Oak Park and River Forest High School, one of the country’s most exemplary and diverse public schools, as students, teachers and administrators grapple with decades-long racial and educational inequities — in addition to the challenges facing today’s teenagers. Related StoryJames is series director and executive producer via his longtime production home, Kartemquin Films, along with Gordon Quinn, Betsy Steinberg, and Justine Nagan. Participant’s Jeff Skoll and Diane Weyermann are also executive producers. Kartemquin received a grant from the John D.

And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to contribute to the production. Participant has worldwide rights.CEO David Linde says America To Me “further demonstrates and perfectly represents our commitment to producing socially relevant entertainment. Expanding into the unscripted realm with this vibrant and compelling series with a filmmaker of Steve’s caliber and creative vision is incredibly exciting for us.”James adds, “I am thrilled to be working with Diane and her team at Participant. They’ve made it possible for us to do a series I’ve wanted to do for over 10 years. I truly believe the story of Oak Park and River Forest High School can be, in many ways, the story of race and education for young people in America today.” KartemquinIn 1994, James directed, produced and co-edited the critically acclaimed documentary Hoop Dreams.

The film was nominated for an editing Oscar — and famously sparked an outcry when it was not nominated in the Best Documentary category, leading to changes in the Academy’s nominations process. James’ other credits include Stevie, The New Americans, The War Tapes, At The Death House Door, The Interrupters and the 2014 Roger Ebert docu Life Itself.

(2002) by director/producer (, ) is now available to stream onChallenging and ethically complex, James describes Stevie as 'The hardest film I've made. Also the most honest. And the saddest.' A modern documentary masterpiece, lauded as 'Brave.courageous and powerful.deeply sorrowful and impossible to forget,' by Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, Stevie was named as one of the in a list by popular online critic Marilyn Ferdinand. NewCity Film critic Ray Pride listed Stevie as #19 in his ranking of the, with only one other documentary placing higher. Filmsweep listed Stevie as.Watch the trailer:In 1995, filmmaker Steve James returns to Pomona, a beautiful rural hamlet in Southern Illinois to reconnect with Stevie Fielding, for whom James once served as an advocated Big Brother.

Stevie Steve James

He finds that the once difficult, awkward child has become––ten years later––an angry and troubled young man. Part way through filming, Stevie is arrested and charged with a serious crime. He confesses to the crime and then later recants. The filmmaker himself is drawn into the film as he tries to sort out his own feelings, past and present, about Stevie and how to deal with him in the wake of his arrest. What was to be a modest profile of Stevie, turns into an intimate four and a half year chronicle of a dysfunctional family's struggle to heal.Stevie was awarded the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary at the 2002 IDFA, the Mayor's prize at the 2003 Yamagata Film Festival, and the Excellence in Cinematography Award at Sundance 2003. The film was distributed in theaters by Lionsgate and gained critical acclaim.Steve James was interviewed by Thom Powers in 2011, after a screening at IFC Center in New York, and reveals many details about the making of the film, the response of Stevie's family to watching it, and Stevie's life after the film.Stevie is also available for purchase on DVD.