Fri Feb 19, 2016 – 5 pm | Hendricks Arts Center
YES! Filmmaker(s) Attending for Q & A
Screens with Ron Taylor: Dr. Baseball
Sun Feb 28, 2016 – 12 pm | La Casa Grande
In the Game
Directed by Maria Finitzo
Feature Documentary
USA | 1 hour 19 minutes | 2015
This warm and often heart-tugging look at four years in the life of a girls’ soccer team at Chicago’s inner city Kelly High School in the primarily Hispanic Brighton Park neighborhood, is an intimate study in sisterhood and hope in the face of adversity. Award-winning director Maria Finitzo (5 GIRLS, TERRA INCOGNITA) underlines the solid sense of family that young players discover in the team setting, as rocky home lives, poverty, and the political forces that dictate slashes to the school’s budget conspire to limit their prospects for a bright future. Produced by Kartemquin (HOOP DREAMS, LIFE ITSELF).
Maria Finitzo
Director/Writer
Maria Finitzo is a two-time Peabody Award-winning social issue documentary filmmaker whose 26 years as a documentary filmmaker has resulted in a body of work that has won every major broadcast award and has been screened in festivals and theaters around the world. Her films are novelistic in their structure, providing multiple points of connection for an audience. She allows the narrative arc of her character’s story to evolve, colliding with other subjects from the film, creating a complex, nuanced story that serves as a vehicle to deepen our understanding of society through everyday human drama.
A coming of age story that reveals the resilience of adolescent girls (5 Girls), a father determined to heal his daughter after a tragic accident (Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita), a young man, alone in the world trying to find his way (With No Direction Home), a soccer coach committed to teaching his players – Hispanic girls – about winning in life (In the Game), and a young couple, both working minimum wage jobs struggling to make ends meet while building a life for themselves and their children (Hard- Earned ) are all films that explore different realms of storytelling by investigating the important social issues of the day.
Finitzo’s films have tackled a variety of subjects from the controversial science of stem cell research and the complex questions surrounding the command and control of nuclear weapons to the psychology of adolescent girls, each film demonstrating a depth and breadth of knowledge and expertise. She is a long time associate of the award-winning documentary company, Kartemquin Films, one of the oldest and most respected social issue documentary film companies in the country. Finitzo is also a screenwriter and fiction film director. Her first feature, Those Left Behind, from her original screenplay is in post-production. Her interest in fiction filmmaking is a natural evolution of her commitment to exploring different realms of storytelling. Finitzo is currently developing The Dilemma of Desire, a documentary that will look at the complex nature of female sexual desire.
