TOON TRIAL

Brett Morgen talks Chicago 10

Brett Morgen's "Chicago 10" revisits the tragic events outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention, when Yippie protestors were brutally beaten by police officers during a protest riot. Morgen, who co-directed "The Kid Stays in the Picture," takes an unconventional route in re-counting this tragic piece of American history in the '60s, telling the story of the subsequent trial as a cartoon (with voiceover work by Hank Azaria, Nick Nolte, Mark Ruffalo and others), and blending it with footage of the riots. In the interview, Morgen shares his experince with showing the film to both the young and mature alike, and why he' sick of why people ask him about Chicago 10 vs. 7. The movie opened the Sundance Film Festival in 2007 and hits theaters this weekend via Roadside Attractions.

indieWIRE: You've been making a lot of effort to generate youth interest in the film. Was this always the plan?

Brett Morgen: The social outreach was very youth-oriented, but the trailer, to me, is not very youth-oriented. In terms of distribution, part of the challenge for "Chicago 10" has been trying to nail down the core audience. I made the film, somewhat obviously, for a youth audience. The reaction that we had from Sundance from most distributors was, "We love the film, we think this film will play like gangbusters for kids, it's going to cost us $10 million to market it and we don't know if they're going to show up." The more conservative approach to marketing this film is to go for the boomers.

Read the rest of the interview in indieWIRE...