Ronit Bezalel's Screening of 70 ACRES In Chicago: Cabrini Green
Wednesday, March 1, 2017 | 3:30 - 5:30 pm
Location: Open Gounds-1400 University Ave.
Ronit Bezalel has been producing and directing films since 1990. Her films cover a wide range of topics, from the dismantling of Public Housing to Professional Women’s Tackle Football (co-directed with Laurie Little and Sree Nallamothu). Her documentaries have been broadcast internationally, played in festivals, and used as a teaching tool in educational institutions worldwide. Newsweek Magazine has honored Bezalel as one of the Top 15 Women of the 21st Century.
Her current film is about a Chicago public housing community known for 70 years as Cabrini Green. Home to thousands, misunderstood by millions, Cabrini Green once towered over Chicago’s most valuable neighborhoods. A looming reminder of inequality and poverty, Cabrini’s high-rises were demolished and an African-American community cleared to make room for another social experiment: mixed-income neighborhoods. Shot over the course of 20-years, 70 Acres in Chicago documents this upheaval, from the razing of the first buildings in 1995, to the clashes in the mixed-income neighborhoods a decade later. 70 Acres in Chicago tells the volatile story of this hotly contested patch of land, while looking unflinchingly at race, class, and who has the right to live in the city.
