On Sunday, May 18 at 2pm, we're pleased to be co-presenting a screening in partnership with West Ridge Artists and FORA - Forging Opportunities for Refugees in America of a variety of videos produced by filmmaker Mirko Popadic. It will take place in person at FORA, 6435 N California in Chicago's West Ridge neighborhood. Mirko has been a pioneer of activist uses of videotape since the 1970s, when he began working with Communications for Change, where Mirko and his collaborators used video to take on absentee landlords and the entrenched political structures of Chicago City Hall. Over his nearly 50-year career, Mirko’s videos have insistently shone a spotlight on the people who are fighting to combat injustice and doing important, courageous work to improve people's lives. This screening will include a selection short documentaries by Mirko including the touching, tragic Between Uncertainty and Hope, about the effects of changing immigration laws on Chicago’s Latino community, and Timuel D. Black, Jr.: America’s Griot, about the beloved Civil Rights activist and Chicago historian. (fb)

Monday May 5 at 5pm CT! Join Media Burn for a virtual screening of the documentary Streets of Ulster (1973), with co-director Louise Denver and scholar Dr. Ciara Chambers. A stunning documentary that has gone largely unseen for decades, Streets of Ulster (1973) is a remarkable portrait of the community living on Kashmir Road in Belfast during the height of The Troubles. Firebombings, armored trucks in the streets, soldiers marching through the neighborhood – Streets of Ulster vividly captures the resilience and humanity of a community existing amidst unimaginable chaos and violence. Streets of Ulster was shot in 1972 by Louise Denver, an Australian journalist then living in London, and photographer David Redom. The pair, having previously spent time in Belfast reporting for Frendz Magazine, returned to the city after gaining access to their first video camera. The filming was extraordinarily dangerous even beyond the violence captured on video – Denver and Redom were kidnapped by IRA members and subject to repeated raids and threats by the British authorities – but Denver and Redom persisted, smuggling the tapes out of Ireland. Denver brought them to New York and edited Streets of Ulster with the assistance of Susan Milano in the facilities of Global Village. In the 1970s, the completed documentary won awards and played to great acclaim in Europe, the US, and around the world, but, like so many other masterpieces of the early video era, it has gone largely unseen in subsequent decades. More than 50 years later, the urgency, power, and importance of Streets of Ulster endures. This event is free with advanced registration. Register here: https://loom.ly/anF_2-k (fb)