On Saturday mornings two years ago, Chicago filmmaker Kate Wrobel crouched down and asked kids to describe their summer activities. “Saving babies,” the children earnestly testified into her camcorder. These kids weren’t playing; they were protesting outside Milwaukee abortion clinics. Wrobel distilled 16 hours of Hi-8 video into a personal ten-minute report titled How I Spent My Summer Vacation.
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The children had been enlisted in the antiabortion crusade by their parents. One father in Wrobel’s tape holds a child in his arms and swats at the camera, calling Wrobel a slut. Sheltering her wide-eyed daughter with one hand, a mother screams, “She’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive.” Then, jabbing at an unseen opponent, she chants, “You’re dead, you’re dead.” Prochoice protesters chant back: “Using kids is not the way; take them home and let them play.” In one jarring scene, four cops pry a girl holding a placard off her father’s shoulders so they can arrest him for trampling a fence. In others, it’s the children who are arrested.
How I Spent My Summer Vacation and eight other short works will be screened at 8 PM Saturday at Chicago Filmmakers, 1543 W. Division, as part of the 19th Festival of Illinois Film and Video Artists. The show will be preceded by an awards ceremony at 7:30 and followed by a champagne reception. On Sunday at 3 PM there’s a repeat screening, followed by a discussion with the artists. Admission is $5, $3 for students and seniors.
