John Sayles’ CITY OF HOPE Screens at The Tivoli September 26th – The Greater St. Louis Humanities Festival

An ambitious, richly detailed panorama of a city in decline – and rapidly approaching crisis – CITY OF HOPE addresses urban decay in the United States by poking around in Hudson City’s political garbage, turning over and exposing the contaminated dirt of patronage, bribery, and special interests, demonstrating how the toxins trickle down to the middle class and poor, seep into our attitudes, and poison our thoughts. The sprawling cast includes actors from the director’s informal stock company – Joe Morton, Chris Cooper, Kevin Tighe, Maggie Renzi, David Strathairn, Vincent Spano, Josh Mostel, Bill Raymond, and Sayles himself – and such compelling additions as Tony Lo Bianco, Angela Bassett, Frankie Faison, and Todd Graff. This new restoration, which celebrates the film’s 25th anniversary, premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.

Cinema St. Louis executive director Cliff Froehlich will lead a post-screening discussion of the film. See Froehlich’s review of CITY OF HOPE, which originally appeared in The Riverfront Times on the film’s release here.