Michael Wilmington & Dann Gire: World on War: A Film Discussion

Join us for a thought-provoking evening with Tribune Film Critic Michael Wilmington and Daily Herald Critic Dann Gire as they discuss films of the Civil War at the Pritzker Military Museum & Library.

Michael Wilmington
Michael Wilmington joined the Chicago Tribune in September 1993 as chief movie critic. He also currently reviews movies and video for Chicago's CLTV and writes a nationally syndicated movie review column. Before joining the Chicago Tribune in 1993, Wilmington served as film critic and reporter for the Los Angeles Times from 1984 to 1993. His long history of work in the field includes film and video critic and contributing editor for L.A. Style from 1987 to 1993; film critic and film editor for L.A. Weekly from 1983 to 1985; and film critic for Milwaukee Magazine from 1983 to 1986. He has been film critic and senior writer for Isthmus, a weekly Madison, Wisconsin newspaper, for almost twenty years.

Wilmington won the Milwaukee Press Club Award (for arts criticism) five times and received three honorable mentions for his work in Isthmus. He has also won the Chicago Headliner Club's Peter Lisagor Award for his work both in the Tribune and on CLTV. A past vice president of the Los Angeles Film Critics' Association, he is a board member of both the National Society of Film Critics and the Chicago Film Critics.

Wilmington has contributed extensively to film journals including Film Comment, Sight and Sound, and Film Quarterly. His teaching and lecturing credits include the University of Southern California, UCLA Extension School and Cal Arts.

Wilmington teaches in the University of Chicago Continuing Education program. He attended the University of Wisconsin and is co-author of the book John Ford (1973, with Joseph McBride). He is a native of Williams Bay, WI.

Dann Gire
Daily Herald film critic Dann Gire is the president and a founding director of the Chicago Film Critics Association. Since he started work at the Daily Herald in 1975, he has won the prestigious Peter Lisagor Award for Exemplary Journalism in Arts Criticism five times, and is currently a Lisagor nominee for 2004. He has also has received the First Place Arts Criticism Award from the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors, plus a First Place from the Associated Press for best humorous feature. Since 1984, Gire has been an adjunct faculty member at William Rainey Harper College, teaching classes in drama, film & literature, journalism, short stories & novels, mass communications and feature writing.

He also serves on the Journalism Advisory boards at Harper College and his alma mater, Eastern Illinois University He is a cofounder of "Yeah, Write!," a coaching service for writers. Gire has been the film critic for Fox 32 WFLD TV, a fill-in political talk show host at WLS Talk Radio, and a frequent guest of Chicago area broadcast outlets, including WGN TV and WTTW's "Chicago Tonight."