The Terrible Myth

Attica

Disturbing the Universe will be broadcast TONIGHT in Los Angeles and Albuquerque!

If your city is not listed below please watch Disturbing the Universe streaming free on line through POV here or look up your local broadcast schedule here.
Los Angeles, KCET
TONIGHT, Thursday, 7/1/10, 9:30:00 PM PT

Albuquerque, KNMD
TONIGHT, Thursday, 7/1/10, 9:00:00 PM MT

Durham NH / Boston, New Hampshire PTV
TOMORROW, Friday, 7/2/10, 11:30:00 PM ET

West Palm, WXEL
TOMORROW, Friday, 7/2/10, 9:30:00 PM ET

Las Vegas, KLVX
Sunday, 7/4/10, 11:00:00 PM PT

Durham NH / Boston, New Hampshire PTV
Sunday, 7/4/10, 11:00:00 PM ET

Syracuse, WCNY
Sunday, 7/4/10, 10:30:00 PM ET

St. Louis, KETC
Sunday, 7/11/10, 11:00:00 PM CT

Baltimore, MPT – Digital 2
Sunday, 7/11/10, 4:00:00 PMET

Pittsburgh, WQED
Friday, 7/16/10, 10:00:00 PM ET

Tune in or set your DVRs and tell your friends and family!

- Embed the YouTube Trailer on Your Site
- Promote the Film Online
- Host a Community Screening
- Send Out a Tune-In Email Tweet about Disturbing the Universe

On January 15th we opened at the Ken Cinema in San Diego California. I traveled to San Diego for the opening and was pleasantly surprised by the number of radicals who came out to see the film in this historically conservative city. Before the screening I had dinner with members of the San Diego National Lawyers Guild, including former NLG president Marjorie Cohn.

We just returned from a terrific opening weekend in Chicago. Sarah and I traveled to Chicago with Attica lawyer Liz Fink and our associate producer Tracy Bunting. Together we attended sold-out screenings on Friday and Saturday nights.

On Friday, January 22, the screening was sponsored by the Chicago Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild and the Chicago NLG Next Generation committee.  A rousing post-screening discussion was moderated by radical lawyer and good friend Micheal Deutsch. In the audience that night was Conspiracy Trial courtroom artist Verna Sadock, Yippie activist and star of our film Nancy Kurshan, and journalist, professor, and Conspiracy Trial expert John Schultz.

On Saturday, January 23, the screening was sponsored by Revolution Books Chicago and the Prisoner’s Revolutionary Literature Fund and the Q&A was moderated by professor, activist, and close friend Bernadine Dorhn. In addition to Bernadine, the evening was hosted by Bill Ayers, Taigen Dan Leighton, Warren Leming, Denis Mueller, Jed Stone, and Dr. Quentin Young.

Visit the screenings page of our website for a complete list of upcoming screenings.

We are thrilled to let you know that Disturbing the Universe will be available on DVD starting April 27, 2010.

Be first to get the DVD! You can pre-order the DVD from Amazon today or add it to your Netflix queue and it will be delivered as soon as it is released.

The DVD has two hours of bonus material!

Additional Interviews and Speeches by William Kunstler · William Kunstler’s Performance at Caroline’s Comedy Club · Kunstler Home Movies · Courtroom Audio and Archival Footage on the Chicago 8 Trial, Wounded Knee, and Attica · Interview with the Filmmakers · Theatrical Trailer · Filmmaker Biographies

Pre-order your copy today!

In addition, the film will be on PBS on the award-winning documentary series P.O.V. in the upcoming 2010 season, which runs from June to September. We will let you know as soon as our air-date is confirmed.

Best wishes,

Emily Kunstler

William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe has opened in 7 cities, and will open in 13 more in the coming weeks and months.  We add more dates all the time, so please visit our website to see if your city has been added to the list!

This Friday, November 27th, Disturbing the Universe opens at the Cable Car Cinema, in Providence, RI. Please share this with friends who live in the area. Click here for more information. Next up:  Denver, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Lake Park and Lake Worth, Florida (opening December 11th).

In New York City, the film has been extended for the third week in a row at Cinema Village! We hope to stay open in New York for many weeks to come so please tell your friends and family to come out and see the film.

I will be doing Q&A’s all weekend, after the 3:20PM on Friday (11/27) and after the 7:35PM shows an Saturday (11/28) and Sunday (11/29). I will be joined by my mother, Margaret Ratner Kunstler and Yusef Salaam, my father’s client, exonerated after serving 7 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

Please join us! Click here for showtimes and tickets.

Sarah and I recently returned home from our openings in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Berkeley. We received a string of great reviews on the West Coast and you can read some of them here:

LA Times Review
LA Times Feature
SF Chronicle Feature
SF Chronicle Review
SF Examiner Review
Seattle Times

Emily Kunstler, Tom Hayden and Sarah Kunstler outside the Nuart in LA

In California, the LA chapter and the Bay Area chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, World Can’t Wait and Libros Revolucion brought crowds out to see William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe. We also participated in two special screenings — one at UCLA Law School and the other at UCSB, hosted by KCSB. At the Q&A following the screening at UCSB, a man who referred to himself as a “reformed” FBI agent informed the audience that he had been one of the agents present during the 71-day standoff at Wounded Knee in 1973. He told us that “you haven’t lived until you have been cross-examined by William Kunstler,” and revealed that he was the agent who exposed the illegal wiretaps at the AIM leadership trial, one of a number of instances of government misconduct that ultimately lead to the case’s dismissal. At one of our screenings in LA we were thrilled to be joined by Chicago 8 defendant Tom Hayden who joined us for a post-film Q&A.

Madonna Thunderhawk, Emily and Gregory Joey Johnson

Gregory “Joey” Johnson, our father’s flag burning client from the Supreme Court case Texas v. Johnson, joined us for post-film discussions in San Francisco and Berkeley. Joey and I were also interviewed by Dennis Bernstein, host of Flashpoints on KPFA. At the radio station, we ran into a bunch of student protesters from the University of California, who in the past weeks, have taken to the streets in protest of university tuition hikes. We were completely refueled by their energy, courage, and commitment. You can listen to the radio show here. At our last Q&A in Berkeley, we were joined by a surprise special guest – American Indian Movement leader (and one of the stars of our film) Madonna Thunderhawk, who was in town to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the occupation of Alcatraz by Native American activists.

As a final note, Sarah and I want to recognize that while we have been celebrating the success of our film, we are saddened by the recent incarceration of our dear friend and comrade, Lynne Stewart, another star of our film. In 2005, Lynne was found guilty of conspiring to aid terrorists and lying to the government, in connection with her representation of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman. On November 17, the appellate court affirmed her conviction, sent her sentence back to the trial court to reconsider as too lenient, and ordered her to begin serving her prison sentence. Lynne is currently incarcerated at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City. Lynne was a movement lawyer like my father, who also believed in the zealous representation of his clients. Click here to find out more about Lynne’s case.

All Power to the People!

Emily Kunstler

Several weeks ago, I asked you to call your local arthouse theater and demand the film. Your efforts have paid off. In less than three weeks, William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe will begin its theatrical run. We are currently scheduled to open in 14 cities across the country! (See opening dates below.)

I am writing to ask for your help yet again. William Kunstler Disturbing the Universe is a small film, but we hope to have a big reach, and we need your help to both get the word out about the release and help us get the film in front of more audiences in more cities. To accomplish this goal, we have started the Disturbing the Universe Street Campaign. To use a slogan popularized during the Chicago Conspiracy Trial, we are asking you to “join the conspiracy” and help us get the word out about our film.

Our father always told us that all of his major court victories were won in the streets and not in the courtroom. He knew that grassroots movements were the true catalyst for social change. One of the most rewarding aspects of making William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe has been meeting so many amazing and passionate people across the country and building a community of supporters. We are proud to adopt the same grassroots philosophy our father used to stand up to injustice to get the word out about the film’s release.

If you would like to help us get the word to the streets, please email us at info@off-center.com. We will mail you materials to help us promote the film, including poster and postcards. Join the Conspiracy! Help us spread the word about William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe in your community.

We also need your help packing the theaters, especially during on our opening weekends in New York (November 13-15) and Los Angeles (November 20-22). Even if you have already seen the film, please support us by buying a ticket and coming out to see Disturbing the Universe in the theater! And bring your friends and family! If our film does well on these weekends, it will stay in theaters longer and be booked in more theaters across the country!

Best wishes,

Emily Kunstler

William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe will be released theatrically by Arthouse Films in the following cities:

Watch our new trailer here.