HSA Strike '75 w/Judy Hoffman and Howard Ehrman

In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Cook County Hospital House Staff Association (HSA) strike, join Media Burn and Kartemquin Films for a screening of Judy Hoffman's documentary HSA Strike '75, followed by a discussion with Hoffman and with doctor/activist Howard Ehrman.

In 1975, a union made up of interns and residents went on strike for 18 days - the longest hospital strike in United States history - for the staffing, equipment, tests, translators and facilities needed to provide patients with care. Cook County Hospital was the only hospital in Chicago that provided care to patients without insurance, making it the only source of health care for the city's poor and working class residents, many of whom were African American and Latino.

Judy Hoffman was there to document the protests, the fights, and the dedicated, idealistic HSA members who cared enough for their patients to put their jobs on the line.

Watch a clip of HSA Strike '75 below:

Dr. Howard Ehrman MD, MPH is a former union organizer, former Chicago Assistant Health Commissioner, University of Illinois Chicago Assistant Professor College of Medicine & School of Public Health (Retired). He is the co-founder of the People's Response Network, an organization that advocates for racial and social justice, equity, and fully funding all Chicago’s public, non-police, entities.

Judy Hoffman was active in the Alternative Television Movement of the early 1970’s, experimenting in the use of small format video equipment. During the 1973 International Congress on Ethnological and Anthropological Sciences, she assisted French ethnographer and filmmaker Jean Rouch and became deeply influenced by cinéma vérité and the idea of shared anthropology. Hoffman played a major role in the formation of Kartemquin Films and worked on numerous documentaries with them. The first woman film Camera Assistant in Chicago, Hoffman apprenticed in IATSE on feature films such as The Breakfast Club but ultimately chose documentary. A major focus of her work has been with the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nation of British Columbia, producing films and videotapes about the reclaiming of Native culture. For over ten years Hoffman directed a video training program on the N’amgis Reserve so that the Kwakwaka’wakw could make their own videos. She was formally adopted into the tribe in 2017. Hoffman was the Acting Director of The Documentary Center of Columbia College and became the Executive Producer of former student Ronit Bezalel's Voices of Cabrini, about the destruction of public housing in Chicago, and producing the follow-up 70 Acres in Chicago: Cabrini Green. Hoffman directed a behind the scenes documentary on Britney Spears, called Stages: Three Days in Mexico, that was shot by Albert Maysles. She, in turn, was a cinematographer on Maysles’ The Gates, which aired on HBO. Other productions include additional cinematography on Howard Zinn: You Can’t be Neutral on a Moving Train and Nelson Algren; The End is Nothing, The Road is All. She has created museum video installations for the Shedd Aquarium of Chicago, the Smart Museum of Art, and the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art. She received a VOICE Media Activism Award from Chicago's Center for Community and Media in 1994, and was awarded the 2004 Nelson Algren Committee Award for “community activists making a significant contribution to Chicago life”. Hoffman is on the Board of Directors of the Media Burn Independent Video Archive and recently retired from her position as a Professor of Practice in the Arts at the University of Chicago in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies.