The Chicago premier of the award-winning film “Cooked: Survival by Zip Code,” will be held at the Gene Siskel Film Center through Thursday, July 25. Directed and produced by Judith Helfand and produced by Fenell Doremus, this film recalls the deadly July 1995 Chicago heat wave and chronicles the politics of the “disaster.” It’s adapted from Eric Klinenberg’s groundbreaking book ‘HEAT WAVE: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago’. The heat wave led to 739 deaths over a period of five days. Most of the victims were reportedly elderly poor residents of the city who could not afford air conditioning and did not open windows or sleep outside for fear of crime.
The UI Cancer Center is promoting this film as voice for communities who have perpetually been afflicted with structural barriers i.e. economic, housing, access to health, stress, and an overlap with the same communities with a high incidence of cancer.