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The Trials of Muhammad Ali

ABOUT 

  • ABOUT Bill Siegel

    Bill Siegel has more than twenty years of experience in documentary filmmaking and education. He co-directed the Academy Award-nominated documentary The Weather Underground; was a researcher on the documentary films Muhammad Ali: The Whole Story and Hoop Dreams; and a writer on One Love, a documentary on the cultural history of basketball by Leon Gast (When We Were Kings). Profile

  • ABOUT Rachel Pikelny

    Rachel Pikelny is a producer affiliated with Kartemquin Films, where she is producing The Trials of Muhammad Ali and co-producing Mormon Movie.  She recently served as associate producer on A Good Man, which aired on PBS’s American Masters in November 2011. Profile

  • ABOUT Laura Washington

    Laura S. Washington is a Chicago Sun-Times columnist and political analyst for ABC 7, Chicago’s ABC-owned station. She brings more than two decades of experience as a multi-media journalist, educator and non-profit professional specializing in African-American affairs, local and national politics, race, and social justice. Washington's work has been widely featured in the national media, including Time and Newsweek magazines, The New York Times, PBS and the BBC.

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Since it was founded as a nonprofit organization in 1966, Kartemquin Films has produced documentaries that examine social issues through the stories of real people. Kartemquin’s latest feature-length film covers Muhammad Ali’s toughest bout: his battle to overturn a five-year prison sentence for refusing US military service in Vietnam. At the time the most recognizable face on earth, Ali found himself in the crosshairs of conflicts concerning civil rights, religion, and wartime dissent. Zeroing in on the years 1967 to 1971, The Trials of Muhammad Ali is not a boxing film, but it is a fight film. Ali sacrificed fame and fortune to uphold his principles and lived in exile within the United States, stripped of his heavyweight belt and banned from boxing. While discussing the challenges they encountered in making the film, director Bill Siegel and producer Rachel Pikelny will delve into a man’s hidden story of personal conflict and courage, one that speaks to generations coming of age today. This conversation will be moderated by noted Chicago journalist Laura Washington.

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