Nov 8th 2019

Amazing Grace (Alan Elliott and Sydney Pollack, 2018, 89min)

Film Screening + Conversation
November 8, 2019 | 7:00pm-9:30pm
Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, 5850 S. Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago

Free and open to the public.
Doors open at 6:30pm, screening starts promptly at 7:00pm.

Post-screening conversation with:
-Jacqueline Najuma Stewart, director of Arts + Public Life, UChicago professor of Cinema and Media Studies
-Dr. Walt Whitman, CEO, Soul Children of Chicago, Inc
-Ayana Contreras, host/producer of Reclaimed Soul, Vocalo/WBEZ

At the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts, only a small crowd in the pews witnessed Aretha Franklin’s historic, transcendent performance in 1972. A recording of this two-day concert/religious experience became the best-selling live gospel album of all time, but the film languished unreleased until last year, when Franklin’s soul-stirring vocals shook the rafters of theaters around the world.

Experience “the closest thing to witnessing a miracle” (Rolling Stone) with a presentation of Amazing Grace under the vaulted ceilings of Rockefeller Chapel. A post-film conversation between Ayana Contreras and Dr. Walt Whitman will be moderated by Jacqueline Stewart, UChicago professor of Cinema and Media Studies and director of Arts + Public Life.

Presented by Arts + Public Life and Rockefeller Chapel, with generous support from University of Chicago Office of Civic Engagement, Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, and University of Chicago Department of Music

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