A Chicago film company has a new documentary film about Louisville’s most famous son, Muhammad Ali.
“The Trials of Muhammad Ali” is a Kartemquin Films documentary covering Ali’s battle to overturn a five-year prison sentence he received for refusing U.S. military service during the Vietnam War.
The film is directed by Bill Siegel (“The Weather Underground”) and executive produced by Leon Gast (“When We Were Kings”) for Kartemquin.
Kartemquin Films is not so much a film company as a cooperative for independent filmmakers that helps finance films meant to raise social awareness, according to the website.
Projects focus on people “whose lives are most directly affected by social and political change and who are often overlooked or misrepresented by the media, Kartemquin’s films open up a dialogue, both in communities and between the general public and policymakers.”
The website for the company states that “Trials of Muhammad Ali” is “not a boxing film, but a fight film” about a long and controversial – but mostly forgotten – period of the boxer’s life.
Projects focus on people “whose lives are most directly affected by social and political change and who are often overlooked or misrepresented by the media, Kartemquin’s films open up a dialogue, both in communities and between the general public and policymakers.”
The Ali film appears to fill in the gap between the boxer’s announcement in 1964 he was Muhammad Ali, a member of Elijah Mohammad’s Nation of Islam and the resumption of his stellar heavyweight career in the 1970s.
From the synopsis:
“Trials” is there on February 26, 1964, the day after Cassius Clay wins his first heavyweight championship, when he publicly announces he is a Muslim, a member of the Nation of Islam (NOI) and subsequently takes a new name: Muhammad Ali. After Ali is drafted to fight in the Vietnam War, he makes his defining expression of resistance, saying, “No, I will not go 10,000 miles to continue the domination of white slave masters over the darker people of the earth.” When the US government denies Ali’s conscientious objector claim, Ali steadfastly refuses induction into the armed forces. He is convicted of draft evasion, fined $10,000, sentenced to five years in prison and has his passport revoked. Boxing authorities strip him of his heavyweight title and ban him from the ring.
The documentary covers the years 1967 through 1970 when he was prosecuted by the government, “vilified by much of white America, and abandoned by the sporting establishment that banked on him.”
“The Trails of Muhammad Ali” debuted last month at the Chicago Humanities Festival.
Recent Kartemquin films include “As Goes Janesville,” about the battle between Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and the state’s union workers.
The film was shown earlier this year on PBS Independent Lens.
Coming in 2013: ‘Trials of Muhammad Ali’ documenting Ali’s fight not to fight in Vietnam
“The Trials of Muhammad Ali” is a Kartemquin Films documentary covering Ali’s battle to overturn a five-year prison sentence he received for refusing U.S. military service during the Vietnam War.
The film is directed by Bill Siegel (“The Weather Underground”) and executive produced by Leon Gast (“When We Were Kings”) for Kartemquin.
Kartemquin Films is not so much a film company as a cooperative for independent filmmakers that helps finance films meant to raise social awareness, according to the website.
Projects focus on people “whose lives are most directly affected by social and political change and who are often overlooked or misrepresented by the media, Kartemquin’s films open up a dialogue, both in communities and between the general public and policymakers.”
The website for the company states that “Trials of Muhammad Ali” is “not a boxing film, but a fight film” about a long and controversial – but mostly forgotten – period of the boxer’s life.
Projects focus on people “whose lives are most directly affected by social and political change and who are often overlooked or misrepresented by the media, Kartemquin’s films open up a dialogue, both in communities and between the general public and policymakers.”
The Ali film appears to fill in the gap between the boxer’s announcement in 1964 he was Muhammad Ali, a member of Elijah Mohammad’s Nation of Islam and the resumption of his stellar heavyweight career in the 1970s.
From the synopsis:
“Trials” is there on February 26, 1964, the day after Cassius Clay wins his first heavyweight championship, when he publicly announces he is a Muslim, a member of the Nation of Islam (NOI) and subsequently takes a new name: Muhammad Ali. After Ali is drafted to fight in the Vietnam War, he makes his defining expression of resistance, saying, “No, I will not go 10,000 miles to continue the domination of white slave masters over the darker people of the earth.” When the US government denies Ali’s conscientious objector claim, Ali steadfastly refuses induction into the armed forces. He is convicted of draft evasion, fined $10,000, sentenced to five years in prison and has his passport revoked. Boxing authorities strip him of his heavyweight title and ban him from the ring.
The documentary covers the years 1967 through 1970 when he was prosecuted by the government, “vilified by much of white America, and abandoned by the sporting establishment that banked on him.”
“The Trails of Muhammad Ali” debuted last month at the Chicago Humanities Festival.
Recent Kartemquin films include “As Goes Janesville,” about the battle between Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and the state’s union workers.
The film was shown earlier this year on PBS Independent Lens.