Approximately 100 Northwestern students, staff, faculty and alumni were among the first to see the Fox Searchlight Pictures film “Conviction” at Century Theaters in Evanston Tuesday.
Members of NU’s Center on Wrongful Convictions and the Medill Innocence Project as well as students in Medill’s Investigative Journalism class were among those who attended the screening.
The film, starring Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell, follows the story a woman who spends 18 years trying to prove her brother was wrongfully convicted.
“The story itself is compelling and will resonate with a lot of people,” said Margaret O’Connor of MarCon Communications, who coordinated the movie screening. “People begin to understand some of the issues at stake while they’re seeing something on the screen.”
Following the film screening was a Q-and-A session with Scott Turow, best-selling author of ten books on wrongful conviction, Rebekah Wanger, program assistant for the Medill Innocence Project, and School of Law Prof. Jeffrey Urdangen, who is also the senior staff attorney for the Center on Wrongful Convictions.
Wanger said the film screening was an entertaining yet educational way to raise awareness among students about wrongful convictions and the Medill Innocence Project.
“It’s a way to say, ‘This is out, this has happened, and we do have a project in our school for people want to get involved,'” she said.
Weinberg sophomore April Wang said the film opened her eyes to the concept of wrongful conviction.
“It just shows even though we’re supposed to think that the legal system is supposed to help us, mistakes like this happen all the time just because of human error,” Wang said.
Directed by Tony Goldwyn and written by Pamela Gray, “Conviction” is based on the true story of Betty Anne Waters, an unemployed single mother of two who spent almost two decades earning her law degree and investigating her brother’s case. Waters worked with the Innocence Project to free her brother Kenneth Waters, who was eventually exonerated of his murder charge in 2001.
The film will be officially released Oct. 22.
