Sep 9 2022

Screenings of CODE OF THE FREAKS (+ Director Q&A)

September 9 - 11, 2022

6:30 PM - 2:00 PM

Address

164 N. State Street, Chicago, IL

Cost

$12

Calendar

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Image of Mat Fraser from Code of the Freaks. A white man wearing a denim shirt and a brown vest looks at the camera. The background image is a black and white still from Freaks (1932) with several people looking at the camera.

Code of the Freaks is playing at the Gene Siskel Film Center September 9th through the 11th, with a special for post-screening Q&A with the director Salome Chasnoff on September 9.

Featuring the perspective of disability activists, artists and scholars including Carrie Sandahl, Mat Fraser, Candace Coleman, Mike Ervin and many more, CODE OF THE FREAKS presents a radical reframing of the use of disabled characters in film. Using hundreds of clips spanning over 100 years of moviemaking, it’s a scorching critique of some of Hollywood’s most beloved characters. This revelatory documentary investigates the power of movie imagery to shape the beliefs and behaviors of the general public toward disabled people, and of disabled people toward themselves. Drawing its title from a line from Tod Browning’s notorious 1932 film, FREAKS (screening September 9 at 9pm at the Film Center), CODE OF THE FREAKS debunks well-worn tropes – the miracle cure, the blind guy driving a car, the magical little people, the face-feelers, the sexless, the better off dead – and brings an entirely fresh perspective. It dares to imagine a cinematic landscape that centers the voices of disabled people.

Full details here: https://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/code-freaks

Accessibility information can be found here: https://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/accessibilityandinclusion