Thanks to a certain current blockbuster film, almost everyone is now familiar with J. Robert Oppenheimer, the so-called father of the atomic bomb. And while Christopher Nolan’s film starring Cillian Murphy does indeed touch upon the fact that Soviet spies worked alongside him at Los Alamos, what became of those spies is not discussed in “Oppenheimer.” However, “A Compassionate Spy,” the new documentary from Steve James (“Hoop Dreams"

Park City, Ut. | Steve James loves Chicago. The city helped to ensure his place in the pantheon of great documentarians thanks to “Hoop Dreams,” widely considered one of the greatest non-fiction films ever made. But in the twenty-five years since that documentary about inner-city high school basketball, the Windy City has continued to give James opportunities to tell its stories. There was “America to Me,” a look at some of the city’s

An up-close journey into the strangely persisting violence encountered in our cities, The Interrupters--by producer-director Steve James (Hoop Dreams, Stevie) and author-turned-producer Alex Kotlowitz (There Are No Children Here). tells the stories of three violence Interrupters who try to protect their communities from the brutality they once were known for themselves. Shot over the course of a year the film captures a period in Chicago (where Cabrini Green is from) when the city became a national symbol for violence in America.