On November 13th, Landon Bone Baker Architects (L.B.B.A) hosted a screening and discussion of The Greens with Sam and Teddy for the architects, developers, and community partners that are executing the city’s redevelopment plans for Cabrini Green. See photos below!
On September 18th, Sam and Teddy hosted a screening and discussion of The Greens as a training for Public Allies. See photos from this screening below:
On August 20th, Sam and Teddy hosted a screening of The Greens with Leadership for Educational Equity (L.E.E.) at Inspiration Kitchen in Chicago for Teach for America (TFA) corps members.
CNN reports:
(CNN) — Division Street runs across Chicago, separating the city more than just geographically.
Teddy Williams knows this well. He grew up in the 1980s in Chicago’s infamous Cabrini Green housing project on Division, a street he said stays true to its name.
Though the neighborhood was notorious for its gang-infested streets and violence, Williams, now 40, remembers the neighborhood differently. He remembers playing with his childhood friends, running up and down hallways of his apartment building, and listening to Slick Rick on big boom boxes.
Read the full article.
CNN has published an op-ed by LC Harris Jr., AKA “Batman” from “The Greens.” Batman writes:
It was unimaginable. Cabrini Green was a tall high-rise, I think 15 stories high, and you got people standing everywhere. You can’t even get in your apartment.
We moved into an apartment on the first floor with boarded-up windows. Sometimes we’d all be out there in the kitchen or reading in the front room and all of a sudden, someone would come by at night and start beating on the boards — scaring my younger brothers and sisters.
Read Batman’s full op-ed here.
The Oxford Research Center in The Humanities writes:
The clear strength of Spitz’s film for me was the space it allowed Williams and his friend, L.C. Harris Jr., also known as ‘Batman’, to speak about their lives. Whilst assuming the role of interviewer, Spitz for the most part stays off-camera. Instead we hear directly from Teddy and ‘Batman’ about their memories growing up in Cabrini Green and their sorrow at its recent decline and demolition by the Chicago Housing Authority. Their words are moving and poignant. ‘You can’t take a gun, put it to my head and say, “This is a stick-up, give me your memories”’, Harris says at one point, reminiscing about his early life in the projects. Williams also effectively uses imagery to describe how it felt to watch his childhood home be dismantled, brick by brick: ‘It was like every time a building was tore down you lost a part of your body, like one of your members. Like your leg don’t work no more, then your other leg stop working…That’s how it started to look. Everything started to limp’.
The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) held a screening of The Greens today. Sam attended in person and Teddy participated via Skype from Chicago. Click here to read a review of the event.
St Catherine’s College at The University of Oxford held a screening of “The Greens” on March, 7, 2014. Sam was there in person and Teddy joined the Q&A session afterward via Skype. More than 60 students attended! See photos below.
NEIU screened “The Greens” on October 8th & 11th 2013 as part of their 19th Annual Equity In Action Conference. Co-Producer Teddy Williams, Cinematographer Emmanuel Camacho, and Composer Lane Beckstrom were there to answer questions in person while Sam participated in the discussion via Skype from Oxford. Click on an image to enlarge it and read the caption.
The Oswegoian reports:
Before showing the film, Spitz asked the audience about their knowledge of Cabrini Green or of public housing. When most people hear the words “public housing” or the “projects,” they immediately think of drugs and violence. And that is exactly what Spitz thought of his entire life about the famous housing project near his hometown in Chicago. Spitz explained that after graduating college and spending a summer in Mexico he came back home feeling lost. He initially wanted to work on a project about the red line in Chicago. In the red line, he met Teddy Williams, a humble barber that would take him on a journey back through time and of self-discovery.
“I still don’t really know where I’m going,” Sam Spitz said, who graduated from Colgate University. “This project led to someplace completely unexpected and that’s where the film will pick up.”
Read the full article.