SATURDAY, JUNE 27 | 7:00PM

Much is said about the violence that plagues Chicago’s hyper-segregated communities. But what is known about the systems that created them, the laws that isolated them, and the policies that abandoned them? And how does a city heal from the decades of heartbreak and pain? A feature documentary filmed over the course of 15 years, CHICAGO AT THE CROSSROAD answers those questions, offering a penetrating look at the incessant segregation, violence and disastrous public policy decisions that affect Chicago and cities across the country to this day.

CHICAGO AT THE CROSSROAD opens a rare historical window into the systematic creation of communities in American cities designed to strategically segregate cities by race. No city serves as a better example of this than Chicago. Today, these communities are rampant with joblessness, mental health issues, and an isolation from a more prosperous existence just across town. We now understand the true extent of the decades long plight of disinvestment in Chicago neighborhoods and the results we see today. 

With a spiraling violence and poverty epidemic in Chicago and cities across the country the biggest questions still loom. Where will people live? Where will they work? And what world will figure generations inherit? CHICAGO AT THE CROSSROAD goes beyond the numbers into what’s really happening on the streets and in the homes of Chicago’s most venerable residents. You’ll feel their struggle. Our nation’s future depends on the direction we take confronting this situation. CHICAGO AT THE CROSSROAD can help us decide which direction is right. It also offers solutions. We must find the right path forward for large urban areas in the future. Whether we chose to take it, perhaps, is one of the most important challenges we face.

Directed by Brian Schodorf, 2019, 120 mins, USA.

WATCH THE TRAILER ➔