Documentary / Music
A documentary film about the Champaign-Urbana, Illinois music scene, from the sixties through the oughts. Features exclusive, on-camera interviews with REO Speedwagon, Head East's John Schlitt, Adrian Belew (with a great Robert Fripp story), Slink Rand, Mark Rubel, Elsinore's…

Self

Self

Self

Self
Self
Self

Documentary traces the history of Memorial Stadium at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Covers the earliest days of football at the university, to early concepts for a stadium, World War I, honoring the true Fighting Illini and the first games at the arena built in the early 1920's. Historical film and photographs are mixed with interviews from noted Illinois football players, architects, historians, contractors, veterans and their families, college marching band directors, newspaper reporters and broadcasters.

From dreamy aerial opening shots, we are sent on an expedition through the storied land of our fifth most populous state, Illinois, often called a miniature version of America. Deborah Stratman’s experimental documentary explores how physical landscapes and human politics can each re-interpret historical events. Eleven parables relay histories of settlement, removal, technological breakthrough, violence, messianism, and resistance. Who gets to write history—physical monuments, official news accounts, or personal spoken-word memories?

What strange forces saved one isolated section along the Upper Mississippi River from the repeated crushing and scouring effects of glaciers during the last two million years? And what pre-Ice Age throwbacks survived here in this unique geologic refuge that holds more Native American effigy mounds, petroglyph caves, strange geological features, and rare species than anywhere in the Midwest? These questions and more are answered in this captivating new documentary. A team of scientists embarks on a journey of exploration to expose both the science and threats behind three unique features of the zone - rare plants and animals, odd geological phenomenon, and striking remnants of a Native American pilgrimage like no other.

Separated by just a few stops on the green line, nine miles west of the bustling financial epicenter of the Chicago Loop is Austin, one of the most impoverished and underserved neighborhoods in the city. Surrounded by violence, gangs, guns and drugs in his daily life, a graduating high school senior reflects on his experience growing up in this neighborhood and how the traumas associated with it shaped his life.

The tension is palpable, the excitement is mounting and the heady scent of competition is in the air as hundreds of eager contestants from across America prepare to take part in what is undoubtedly one of the greatest events of their lives -- the Mayflower Dog Show. The canine contestants and their owners are as wondrously diverse as the great country that has bred them.