No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson

Director: Steve James
Category: Democratic Process; Ethnic diversities
Total Running Time: 80 min.
Release Date: 2010
Website: http://www.kartemquin.com/films/no-crossover-the-trial-of-allen-iverson

Synopsis

On February 13, 1993, 17-year-old high school basketball star Allen Iverson entered a Hampton, Virginia bowling alley with several classmates. It was supposed to be an ordinary evening, but a quarrel soon turned into a brawl pitting Iverson's black friends against a group of white men. The fallout from the fight and the handling of the subsequent trial landed the nation's best high school athlete in jail and sharply divided the city along racial lines. Oscar nominee Steve James (Hoop Dreams) returns to his hometown of Hampton, where he once played basketball, to take a personal look at this still disputed incident and examine its impact on Iverson and the shared community.

Race is the major fault line in the American narrative, and justice is often divided in America along racial lines. With sports being one of the few outlets in which disenfranchised young African-American males can succeed, here’s a story of a sports star, revered by some, despised by others, for very different reasons, is set up to take the fall.

Trailer

About the Filmmaker

Photo by Aaron Wickenden

STEVE JAMES is the award-winning director, producer and co-editor of Hoop Dreams (1994), which began his longtime association with Kartemquin Films in Chicago. Hoop Dreams won every major critics award as well as a Peabody Award, a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and a Directors Guild of America Award. James' next documentary, Stevie, won major festival awards at Sundance, Amsterdam, Yamagata and Philadelphia, and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. James was also an executive producer, story director and co-editor of the Kartemquin PBS series, The New Americans, which won two Chicago International Television Festival Golden Hugos and an International Documentary Association Award for Best Limited Series. James served as producer and editor of The War Tapes, a documentary comprised of video footage shot by American soldiers in Iraq. The film won the top prize at both the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival, and the inaugural 2006 BritDoc Film Festival. Most recently, he co-produced and co-directed with Peter Gilbert the acclaimed At The Death House Door, which won the top prizes at the Atlanta Film Festival, DOC New Zealand and DOC Tel Aviv, as well as the Inspiration Award at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, and aired on IFC-TV. James’ recent film, The Interrupters, received its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.