Synopsis
Director: Steve James
260 min (4 episode series), U.S., 2019
From Chicago’s foremost nonfiction filmmaker Steve James (Hoop Dreams, The Interrupters), comes another defining chronicle of our fractured, crooked, and profoundly alive metropolis. This epic four-part series—called “momentous… enthralling… [and] a flat-out must-see” (Indiewire)—captures Chicago at a crossroads, still reeling from the police shooting of Laquan McDonald and in the midst of a highly contentious mayoral election. Inspired by Chris Marker’s classic documentary La Joli Mai, James ventures north and south, east and west, tracking the mayoral candidates and everyday citizens, from protests to penthouses, reflecting both the divisions that separate us and the bridges that unite us (Go Bears!). “Gripping [and] exceptional” (The Hollywood Reporter) and “incredibly, uniquely entertaining” (Film Comment), City So Real is, miraculously, both a loving tribute to and a sharp indictment of the American City.