How SLAM is celebrating 30 years of Hoop Dreams

According to the opinions of two of the most famous film critics in the country in 1994, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert of. Siskel & Ebert fame, not to mention a handful of its counterparts in other media outlets, the best film of 1994 was…a documentary about two high school hoopers from Chicago.

Being a long-time basketball player knows everything there is to know about it Hoop Dreamsa cinematic masterpiece about Arthur Agee, William Gates and their families, or a young buck learning about film for the first time, you have to understand how impossible it was to one of the best movies of any year was a basketball doctor. It's quadruply so back in '94, when there was no such thing 30 for 30 and good luck finding a documentary on any topic anywhere but PBS. In fact, filmmakers Steve James and Frederick Marx originally set out to make a 30-minute piece that they hoped would land on PBS and in hindsight, there would be nothing like it. 30 for 30 if Hoop Dreams it didn't show the world how powerful a sports-based documentary can be.

It wasn't temporary, either. Hoop Dreams he has appeared in many lists of the greatest documentaries of all time and is often passed down from one generation to another in basketball families as a treasured heirloom. “I think the biggest impact is knowing that people in my generation are watching with their children. I just saw a clip of Carmelo Anthony saying Hoop Dreams it's a movie his son needs to see,” said Gates, who during the movie traveled 90 minutes from Cabrini-Green Homes in Chicago to private St. Joseph High School in Westchester and eventually overcame a knee injury to receive a scholarship. Marquette. “At its core, the film is still as important today as it was then because the problems are still there…You still have children who dream of making an organization, and there are two sides to the story. There are injuries, there are marks, lack of opportunities. These stories are still there. Just change the face.”

Said James the director Hoop Dreams as his first major project and subsequently worked on several successful films with Chicago-based Kartemquin Films, “I'm shocked and surprised how many people are still talking about it. It's not every day, but I get closer to it Hoop Dreams a lot. It helps that it exists and is available—people can still watch this film.”

While James and Marx were of the opinion that Hoop Dreams and began work on it, Peter Gilbert arrived soon after and served as Director of Photography and producer. Gilbert went on to produce many films and still does to this day—but nothing has ever been the same Hoop Dreams he did.

“It's an interesting thing. I've made 30 or 40 other films, including one about the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, Innocence Project films about wrongly convicted people, all kinds of different things, and narrative things,” said Gilbert. “But Hoop Dreams something people describe me by. [It’s] it's not a bad movie to describe.”

There Gates, James and Gilbert have all been together ever since Hoop Dreams came out three decades ago (the former a pastor and motivational speaker who moved to San Antonio and the latter with all their subsequent movie projects), Agee is, in fact, “Mr. Hoop Dreams. ” He owns and continues to operate Classic HD Basketball Clothing Co Hoop Dreams 2. He meets Gates again The Agee and Gates Podcast: What's Yours Hoop Dream? Asked about the text if Hoop Dreams feels like an everyday part of his life all these years later, Agee has no doubts. “It never ends, it's always there no matter where I am,” he answered quickly. “It's really a wonderful thing to live every day.” Dreams come true, indeed.

SLAM has and will celebrate a film like Hoop Dreams no matter how old we are or the film, but it feels special that the film is turning 30 this year as we are. In February, we brought the guys together at the first annual SLAM Film Festival to celebrate 30 years, kicking off a year-long celebration of film.

Now, Alamo Drafthouse is re-releasing the film to theaters this week as part of their 1994 retrospective series, Project Backboard refurbishing the court at Garfield Park on Chicago's West Side as part of JDS Sports' Play With Purpose initiative, with the show. Court launches this weekend, and SLAM will be releasing a capsule collection on Friday. You can join the stars and filmmakers of Hoop Dreams for a special 30th anniversary panel at the prestigious Chicago Humanities Festival on November 9th. For more information and tickets, visit chicagohumanities.org.

Photos by Kartemquin Films.