Jerry Blumenthal

Now We Live on Clifton

Susan Delson, Richard Schmiechen

Now We Live on Clifton follows 10 year old Pam Taylor and her 12 year old brother Scott around their multiracial West Lincoln Park neighborhood. The kids worry that they'll be forced out of the neighborhood they grew up in by the gentrification following the expansion of DePaul University.

Golub

Jerry Blumenthal, Gordon Quinn

Leon Golub

Leon Golub's massive canvasses depict scenes most of us would prefer not to see - mercenary killings, torture, and death squads. Golub offers not simply a profile of a painter with a political conscience, but an investigation into the power of the artist to reflect our times and to change the way we think about our world.

Taylor Chain II: A Story of Collective Bargaining

Jerry Blumenthal, Gordon Quinn

In 1981-2, the Kartemquin filmmakers returned to the Taylor Chain plant to show labor and management working together against the odds, trying to save the plant from becoming the latest victim of anti-union legislation and the globalization of cheap, exploitable labor. A sequel to Taylor Chain I: A Story in a Union Local.

The Chicago Maternity Center Story

Jerry Blumenthal

For more than seventy-five years, the Chicago Maternity Center provided safe home deliveries for Chicago mothers. This film interweaves the history of the center with the stories of a young woman about to have her first baby and the center's fight to stay open in the face of the corporate takeover of medicine.

Golub: Late Works Are the Catastrophes

Jerry Blumenthal, Gordon Quinn

The work and times of American artist, Leon Golub from 1985 to his death in 2004, taking us from images of interrogations and torture to the ironies and dark humor of old-age.

Hum 255

Anthony Thomas, Jerry Blumenthal

In 1968, striking students at the University of Chicago occupied an administration building. A year later, two expelled young women were asked by their former classmates to talk about the experience as a class project. The women confront the students about their convictions and how far they are willing to go to defend their values.

The New Americans

Renee Tajima-Peña, Jerry Blumenthal

The New Americans follows a diverse group of immigrants and refugees as they leave their home and families behind and learn what it means to be new Americans in the 21st century.

Taylor Chain I: A Story in a Union Local

Jerry Blumenthal, Gordon Quinn

Taylor Chain I tells the gritty realities of a seven-week strike at a small Indiana chain factory during 1973-74. Volatile union meetings and tension-filled interactions on the picket line provide an inside view of the tensions and conflicts inherent to labor negotiations. Due to a lack of funds and a fire at Kartemquin which necessitated a re-edit of the film, the film was not released until 1980. Filming then began a year later on Taylor Chain II: A Story of Collective Bargaining.

UE/Wells

Guillermo Brzostowski, Jerry Blumenthal

UE/Wells follows an organizing drive by the United Electrical Workers Union at the Wells Foundry in Chicago. The multi-ethnic work force of Polish, Arab, Jewish, Hispanic and African American men and women unite together despite the company's efforts to use race as a wedge to divide them.