aretha franklin
Nov 8th, 2019
7:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.

Amazing Grace: Film Screening + Conversation

Address
Rockefeller Memorial Chapel

5850 South Woodlawn Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637

Amazing Grace: Film Screening + Conversation

Experience “the closest thing to witnessing a miracle” (Rolling Stone) with a free screening of Amazing Grace at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel

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.

Post-screening conversation with:

  • (Moderator) Jacqueline Najuma Stewart, director of Arts + Public Life, UChicago professor of Cinema and Media Studies
  • Ayana Contreras, host/producer of Reclaimed Soul, Vocalo/WBEZ 91.5
  • Dr. Walt Whitman, CEO, Soul Children of Chicago, Inc

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 the 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