The Melbourne premiere season of The Interrupters at ACMI running exclusively throughout January next year has been coined “the most necessary film of the year” by Slate magazine and for good reason. The engrossing film following the lives of three dedicated individuals trying to protect the communities they once projected violence upon reveals the truth of youth crime in Chicago.
From a violence that sought more casualties in Chicago streets than across the military in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2009 an innovative organisation CeaseFire makes a stand interrupting the violence. These “violence interrupters” including Cobe Williams, Eddie Bocanegra and Ameena Matthews; daughter of a notorious gangland leader have turned their lives around and made use of their gangland and prison royalty as a way forth through wisdom. The film produced by Alex Kotlowitz an award-winning journalist and acclaimed director Steve James was awarded the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Miami Film Festival.
