JENS JENSEN - HARMONIOUS WORLD



PLAY

Jens Jensen: Dean of Landscape Architecture, poet of the prairie, prophet of conservation, this new documentary explores his vision to make a new Eden in America.

In the late 19th century, Chicago was so polluted that children played in muddy streets full of garbage and rats. A Danish born street sweeper named Jens Jensen rode a trolley to the edge of the city and there he discovered the native prairie. He saw its flowering plants, broad, sweeping vistas and open sky - it filled him with incredible joy - it reminded him of home. He would rise to Superintendent of the West Side parks and create in them idealized verisons of the prairie, "breathing spaces," his solution to the daily suffering of the masses.

But Chicago was also a cesspool of corruption, he wouldn't stand for it and he was fired. In the interim, he would become one of the most desired landscape designers and work for wealthy industrialists like Julius Rosenwald (Sears) and the Ford family.

At his death the NY Times called him the "dean of landscape architecture." Yet Jensen is barely known outside architectural landscape circles. This film will bring his name to prominence where it belongs alongside Frederick Law Olmsted. He left a powerful legacy: pioneering the conservation movement to save the Indiana Dunes and Starved Rock; setting aside the Cook County Forest Preserves; popularizing the prairie Style of design; designing the first American Garden and making parks and playgrounds for everyday people.

Jensens's message of environmentalism and design are as fresh today as they were over a century ago: the movement to plant and save the prairie, to idealize it and use it as a design motif to set aside land for recreation. Today, the fight to save our planet is one of our most important issues, we will spotlight the current battles for the Dunes, parks and forest preserve that continue even now.

The overall look and feel of the program will focus on Jensen's vision, how it was shaped, how he saw, and what he did with that vision. To immerse ourselves into Jensen's way of thinking, we will use interviews with Jensen scholars and environmentalists, footage of Chicago, Jensens' parks and the Indiana Dunes past and present, Jensen's own photos and writings, and strong poetic footage and graphics of his parks and design.

SWEET HOME CHICAGO




SYNOPSIS:

"During those years between Korea and Vietnam, when rock and roll was being perfected, our neighborhood was proclaimed an Official Blight Area," says Dave Lujak, Southwest side Chicago resident and teenage leader of "The Blighters" - the world's greatest unknown blues band, or so he'd like to think.

Mayor Daley's urban renewal program is rendering areas like Dave's into piles of brick and rubble. "I dig beauty," says his amigo Pepper, who sees some askew loveliness in the blight around them. At least, for the first time in forty years, the White Sox are in the pennant race.

When Dave's parents push him to take over the family funeral business, he screams, "I'm a musician, not a mortician!" Dave's dream is The Blighters will be on their way if they perform at the church fair. The problem is convincing the nuns to let them.

But everyone and everything in the neighborhood conspires against them - parents, girls, local tough Arms and his gang, and Frank Kazursky, the local butcher and leader of the Polka Dots. Frank's not about to let a bunch of teenagers steal the musical spotlight he and band have enjoyed for years. Then one of Frank's musicians chokes on a cabbage roll.

Aside from not really knowing how to play, Dave's band have their own problems: in Ziggy's nightmare an atomic will bomb drop on Chicago if the Sox win the pennant; Pepper has to defend his mother from his father's drunken attacks; and Deejo's dad is pressuring him to work on the factory assembly line.

As the summer comes to a close and the church fair looms, Dave frantically works to save his future -- the band has got to "kill" on stage at the church fair.

When memory and dreams meld, where despair and miracles exist side by side, and behind every blighted facade is a golden angel with wings to fly, that is Dave's blighted neighborhood.

Sweet Home Chicago is based on the award winning short story, "Blight" by Stuart Dybek. Praise for "Blight" and Sweet Home Chicago:

"Your script is terrific and wonderfully written," -- Stephen Frears, "Moving and real and brilliantly ambitious" - Los Angeles Times, "Blight is the best short story ever written about Chicago." - Crain's, "A fictional world both ordinary and amazing" - NY Times, Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren Award, Mayor Daley's "One Book, One Chicago" Official Selection - 2004, Sweet Home Chicago - IFP Emerging Narrative selection

Contact Carey Lundin (773) 991-5655

To watch the trailor and for more info about Sweet Home Chicago, CLICK HERE.