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King of Kings: Chasing Edward Jones
February 18 @ 9:00 pm - 10:39 pm
Gangster to some, philanthropist to others, who was the real Edward Jones? One of the most powerful men of the early 20th Century, Edward Jones became one of the wealthiest men in America building a $25 million empire as the brains and brawn behind a Chicago “Policy” syndicate, an illegal numbers game in the 1930s and ’40s that ultimately became the modern-day State Lottery. The “Policy King” went head-to-head with Al Capone’s “Outfit” and the Feds, at the same time as he hobnobbed with celebrated artists including Josephine Baker, Frida Kahlo, and Duke Ellington. Using lively animated sequences and interviews with people who knew Jones, filmmaker Harriet Marin Jones delves deep into her family’s past to tell this remarkable and gripping story of this grandson of enslaved people and son of a preacher; a legendary African American who rose to the heights of financial and political prominence, reclaiming his legacy as a man fighting for respect for himself and his community in a racist society.
AWARDS:
The Chicago Award 58th Chicago International Film Festival 2022,
Audience Award 22nd Anchorage International Film Award 2022
