Phil Ranstrom

documentary filmmaker from Chicago

Phil Ranstrom is an American documentary filmmaker living in Chicago, Illinois. He has been writing, producing, and directing documentaries since the 1980s. Among his credits is the Emmy Award-winning, feature-length documentary, Cheat You Fair: The Story of Maxwell Street, narrated by actor Joe Mantegna. This epic film is told in three acts and details the rise and fall of Chicago’s Maxwell Street, the birthplace of electric, urban blues. During the span of more than a decade, Ranstrom continued to interview and record countless vendors, residents, and blues artists, and capture an oral history that was never told. Cheat You Fair stands today as the most comprehensive history of Maxwell Street in any medium. It features interviews from blues icons including Bo Diddley, Junior Wells, Hubert Sumlin, Buddy Guy, Charlie Musselwhite, John Primer, and Uncle Johnnie Williams. Ranstrom continues to travel the world and document the blues. He’s currently working on a project titled Smugglers Of Freedom, that tells of his journey to Poland where he discovered what can only be described as one of the greatest stories in blues and rock’n’roll history never told.