About the Screening
In 1999, nine-year-old Emmanuel Sanford-Durant and his family began filming their daily lives in America’s most dangerous neighborhood — just 17 blocks behind the U.S. Capitol. They've made in a unique collaboration with filmmaker and journalist Davy Rothbart, and spanning two decades, 17 BLOCKS illuminates a nation's ongoing crisis through one family's raw, stirring, and deeply personal saga.
Screening of film is followed by a moderated post-film conversation with Director Davy Rothbart.
Davy Rothbart, Director
Davy Rothbart is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, bestselling author and journalist, frequent contributor to public radio's This American Life, and the creator of Found Magazine. Rothbart's film MEDORA, about a resilient high-school basketball team in a dwindling Indiana town, based on the New York Times story by Pulitzer Prize winner John Branch, was Executive Produced by Steve Buscemi and Stanley Tucci and premiered at the 2013 SXSW Film Festival. MEDORA later aired on PBS's Independent Lens and won an Emmy Award. Rothbart previously directed two documentaries about the activist band Rise Against, which became best-selling DVDs. Rothbart's radio stories featured on This American Life have reached more than 20 million listeners, and his books FOUND and My Heart Is An Idiot have debuted on The New York Times Bestseller List.