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as Himself
Caged. Invisible. Shamed. Trapped. These words mark the tenants, clerks and even the owners of Chicago's last remaining Singe Room Occupancy (SRO) hotels. These small spaces are home for many at the bottom of Chicago's housing ladder. Cloaked in darkness and secrecy, these hotels are often maligned as drug dens and havens for prostitution but the people who live, work and own these hotels have never fully shared their stories. Caged Men is a feature-length documentary which examines the disquieting stories of near-homeless Americans living on the margins and their invisibility in a largely indifferent and, at times, hostile community. It attempts to lend a voice to SRO residents, clerks, owners and to the hotels themselves.
Mike Leonard tells the inside story of how the west Loop’s St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church, known to residents as Old St. Pat's, transformed itself from an empty church in a declining neighborhood into a Chicago hub of worship, culture, social life, education, and service -- revitalizing a then-struggling West Loop.
Set within Chicago’s labyrinth of alleyways, Scrappers is a cinéma vérité portrait of Otis and Oscar—two scrap metal scavengers searching for a living with brains, brawn, and battered pickup trucks. The film elucidates how globalization, the 2008 financial crisis, crackdowns on undocumented immigrants, and widespread scrap metal theft affect these men and their families.
A five-year odyssey of a South Side Chicago neighborhood, where more than 400 African-American families are being displaced by a multi-billion dollar freight company. The documentary film follows homeowner-turned-activist Deborah Payne, who vows to be "the last house standing," and the Row Row Boys, teen friends who must start a new life across gang lines.
From America's deep South, to Detroit and New York this captivating and enlightening documentary special traces the evolution of blues through pivotal moments in American history. Brewer discovers that there was no music called 'the blues' when its creators just stepped into a new feel of musical expressionism… just a means of releasing a lifetime of pain and oppression, from which music, momentarily, set them free.
