Kartemquin Films is still going strong after half a century (see last year's impressive one-two punch of Bing Liu’s Minding the Gap and Steve James’ America to Me) but the short-form works of Chicago’s documentary production-company powerhouse tend to receive less exposure than its features. That should change with the release of ’63 Boycott, a provocative new short directed by Kartemquin co-founder Gordon Quinn that has already been shortlisted for an Oscar.
Quinn's 30-minute documentary primarily details the remarkable but strangely forgotten true story of how 250,000 Chicago students boycotted the public schools in which they were enrolled to protest segregation during the height of the Civil Rights movement. The filmmakers combine archival 16mm footage, much of it previously unseen, with present-day interviews with the original boycott participants to paint a compelling portrait of one of the largest civil rights demonstrations to take place outside of the South. ’63 Boycott is also no dusty museum piece: The filmmakers also draw parallels between the segregationist policies of Mayor Daley in the 1960s and the contemporary policies of Rahm Emmanuel’s administration—particularly in regards to the mass closure of public schools in minority communities.
’63 Boycott is well paired with the world premiere of Jason Polevoi’s F*** Your Hair—a more light-hearted though no-less polemical non-fiction short—when both films screen together at the Gene Siskel Film Center’s annual Stranger Than Fiction Series later this month. The latter movie follows the strange odyssey of Andres Araya and Mila Ramirez, Latin American immigrants who founded Chicago’s 5 Rabbit Cerveceria and unwittingly found themselves at the center of a social protest movement after being commissioned to brew the house beer for Trump Tower.
After Trump’s disturbing campaign-trail pronouncements about Mexican immigrants, the owners of 5 Rabbit Cerveceria found themselves with little recourse but to pull their beer from the tower—a blonde ale that they promptly rebranded “Chinga Tu Pelo” (or “F*** Your Hair”). The relabeled brew catapulted 5 Rabbit to new heights of popularity as local restaurants, watering holes and individual consumers began purchasing the beer in mass quantities, making an anti-Trump statement in the process. Polevoi’s witty and engaging 38-minute shaggy-dog story, which features interviews with Hopleaf owner Michael Roper and The Matrix co-director Lily Wachowski, should hold equal appeal for political obsessives and craft-beer aficionados.
The Stranger Than Fiction screenings of ’63 Boycott and F*** Your Hair will take place on Friday, January 25, Saturday, January 26 and Wednesday, January 30. Filmmakers representing both films will attend all screenings. More information, including ticket info and showtimes, can be found on the Siskel Center’s website.