Theater 3 THE AMERICAN EGYPT

(REPEAT See Saturday 5:15 pm)

Wednesday August 22 5:45 pm

Theater 2 SUBURBAN ROULLETTE

(REPEAT See Sunday 12:30 pm)

Wednesday August 22 6:15 pm

Theater 2 MEDIA ASSASSINS

(REPEAT See Friday 5:45 pm)

Wednesday August 22 7:00 pm

Theater 3 WHAT¹S THE FREQUENCY?

(REPEAT See Sunday 5:15 pm)

Wednesday August 22 7:30 pm

Theater 2 PRESENT TENSE

(REPEAT See Sunday 4:00 pm)

Wednesday August 22 CLOSING NIGHT 8:00 pm

Theater 1 RESIN

Crack The CIA
Stephen Marshall
Documentary. Video. 9:05. 2001. World Premiere.

A Guerilla News Network report on the covert history of CIA drug smuggling from Nicaragua to Arkansas to South Central L.A., GNN sheds light on the darkest secret of the agency’s operational directorate. Crack The CIA features exclusive footage of former Los Angeles cop Mike Ruppert’s historical televised confrontation with CIA director John Deutsch.

Resin Vladimir Gyorski

Feature. Video. 80:00. 2001. World Premiere

“Extremely important… On a level with Traffic.” – The Dogme Secretariat, Denmark

The Chicago Underground Film Festival is proud to present the world premiere of Vladamir Gyorski’s Resin. Made in strict accordance to the rules of Dogme 95’s “Vow of Chastity,” Resin takes a documentary-like approach as it follows a small-time drug dealer named Zeke. After he is arrested, beat up in jail and then receives his first felony conviction, Zeke vows to make one final score and a fresh start, but inevitably winds up in a showdown with a malicious legal system that threatens to take away his most valued possessions: his freedom and his life. Resin is a timely political commentary on America’s failed “War on Drugs” and a criminal justice system that imprisons a higher percentage of our population than any other country in the world. Resin is about how difficult it is to make personal change, but more important, it is about the necessity of finding truth beneath a history of lies.

California’s “Three Strikes’ Law”

The Three-Strikes law was passed in California in 1994 after the kidnapping and murder of a 12-year-old Petaluma girl, Polly Klaas. Her abductor, Richard Allen Davis, a two-time violent felon, became the prime example of a legal system that failed to keep its most violent criminals behind bars.

When the Klaas family read the proposed law drafted in their daughter’s name they became its earliest and strongest opponents, and to this day, the Klaas family fights for its reform. The Klaases realized that as written, the statute was poorly defined and would do much more harm than good, while doing little, if anything, to stop the criminals it was supposed to address.

Meanwhile, Pete Wilson ran a wildly successful California gubernatorial campaign, based, in large part, on his tough-on-crime bill and raising enormous amounts of money in a fund bearing Polly Klaas’ name. The Klaas family repeatedly asked Wilson to remove Polly’s name from the fund. He ignored their request and went on to a decisive victory, as did the Three Strikes law. Today, the Klaas family’s worst nightmares have been realized.

Since the law’s inception, over 6,000 people have been sent to prison under its provisions, over half of them for nonviolent offenses. Over 3,000 nonviolent, non-serious offenders are currently serving 25 to life in the state of California.