Stranded by the State

Documentary web series chronicling the human impact of the ongoing Illinois budget crisis.
 
Illinois has not passed a real budget in over a year, the first state to do so since the Great Depression. The ongoing fight over the budget between Governor Bruce Rauner and the Illinois General Assembly has been covered widely, but what does this lingering crisis look like in people’s day-to-day lives? Using Kartemquin’s cinéma vérité style, the series follows the families, workers and students living through the de facto budget cuts, showing the ways it deteriorates the fabric of Illinois communities.

The series is co-production between In These Times and Kartemquin Films, two veteran Chicago media organizations with a long history of covering social justice issues.

This project was produced with funding from the Chicago Digital Media Production Fund, a project of The Voqal Fund administered by Chicago Filmmakers.