Inspired by ‘A Most Violent Year’ Participant Media Teams with Cure Violence to Build Health Approach to Eradicating Violence
Director/Writer J.C. Chandor and Cure Violence Founder Dr. Gary Slutkin Discuss the Contagious Nature of Violence in New Video
Los Angeles, CA & Chicago, IL, December 10, 2014 /3BL Media/ - Participant Media, the global media company dedicated to entertainment that inspires, and Cure Violence, an organization working to stop the spread of violence, are collaborating on a social action campaign around the release of Participant’s film A MOST VIOLENT YEAR, leveraging interest in the film to encourage people to treat violence like a contagious disease, similar to the way health workers operate when fighting an epidemic.
Working in some of the most violent neighborhoods in America and globally, Cure Violence approaches violence as a health issue, treating it with preventive measures designed to interrupt it before it happens. The organization’s programs have been shown to reduce violent crime by as much as a 50% in the communities where they operate, and Participant is joining with Cure Violence to expand the health approach to violence prevention across the country – from California to New York.
As part of the campaign, Participant is producing sharable social media info-graphics and video vignettes, which will be available online at www.TakePart.com/ViolentYear, and is hosting events with public opinion leaders in cities across the country.
In the first video, released today, A MOST VIOLENT YEAR writer/director J.C. Chandor and Dr. Gary Slutkin, founder and executive director of Cure Violence, discuss J.C.’s inspiration for the film and Dr. Slutkin’s work at Cure Violence.
Distributed by A24 and presented in association with Participant Media, Image Nation and Film Nation, A MOST VIOLENT YEAR is a searing crime drama set in New York City during the winter of 1981, statistically the most dangerous year in the city’s history. From acclaimed writer/director J.C. Chandor, and starring Oscar Isaac (INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS) and Jessica Chastain (ZERO DARK THIRTY), this gripping story plays out within a maze of rampant political and industry corruption plaguing the streets of a city in decay. J.C. Chandor’s third feature examines one immigrant’s determined climb up a morally crooked ladder, where simmering rivalries and unprovoked attacks threaten his business, family, and – above all – his own unwavering belief in the righteousness of his path. With A MOST VIOLENT YEAR, Chandor journeys in a bold new direction, toward the place where best intentions yield to raw instinct, and where we are most vulnerable to compromise what we know to be right.
Named Film of the Year by the National Board of Review, A MOST VIOLENT YEAR arrives in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on December 31, 2014.
About Participant Media
Participant Media (http://www.ParticipantMedia.com) is a global entertainment company founded in 2004 by Jeff Skoll to focus on feature film, television, publishing and digital content that inspires social change. Participant's more than 60 films include Good Night, and Good Luck, Syriana, An Inconvenient Truth, Food, Inc., Waiting for ‘Superman’, The Help, Contagion and Lincoln. Participant launches campaigns that bring together government entities, foundations, schools, and others to raise awareness and drive people to take action on issues from each film or television show. Pivot (http://www.pivot.tv/), the company’s television network, is available nationally in 47 million homes, with a diverse slate of talent and a mix of original series, acquired programming, films and documentaries. TakePart (http://www.TakePart.com) is Participant’s digital news and lifestyle magazine and social action platform for the conscious consumer. Through its films, social action campaigns, digital network, and its television network, Participant seeks to entertain, encourage and empower every individual to take action.
About Cure Violence
Cure Violence (http://www.cureviolence.org) approaches violence prevention in an entirely new way: as a disease that can be stopped using the same health strategies that successfully eradicated infectious diseases such as cholera and AIDS. Featured in the award-winning 2011 documentary THE INTERRUPTERS and ranked as a Top 10 NGO by Global Journal, Cure Violence is spearheading an international movement to reduce the transmission of violence by: interrupting those at highest risk of committing a violent act; identifying and treating high risk individuals to change violent behavior; and mobilizing the community to adopt new norms that reinforce violence is not acceptable. The program was founded by Gary Slutkin, M.D. at University of Illinois-Chicago in 1995 and has partners in eight countries on five continents, including over 50 neighborhoods in 23 U.S. cities.
