July 23 - July 24, 2010

Chicago Film Archives presents A Pictorial Story of Hiawatha at the Eleventh Annual Northeast Historic Film Summer Symposium: Filmic Representations of Indigenous Peoples

April 24, 2010

Midwest Archives Conference

“With a Little Help From My Friends”

CFA presents on the impact of preservation assistance provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Double Tree Hotel
300 E. Ohio
Chicago, IL

April 7-10, 2010

Orphans 7: A Film Symposium

“The Pictorial Story of Hiawatha”

Chicago Film Archives and Valparaiso University present the premiere of newly restored film that tells “The Pictorial Story of Hiawatha.” Discovered in the Special Collections Library at Valparaiso University, this nitrate film was shot between 1901-1903 by Charles L. Bowden and Katharine Ertz-Bowden, lecturers and headliners for the Circuit Chautaugua. The live presentation captured in this film took place in Desbarats, Ontario, Canada, and was performed by members of the Garden River Ojibwe community who lived nearby.

Colorlab restored 7 rolls of 35mm nitrate film from an extraordinarily early time in film history.

A Pictorial Story of Hiawatha - Sitting Outside the Teepee

Hosted by New York University

SVA Theater
333 W. 23rd Street
New York City

CFA thanks the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation for their support in our attendance at this conference.

April 14, 2010

THE CHICAGO FILM ARCHIVES PRESENTS OUT OF THE VAULT 2010

The Worst Years of Our Lives

Being a teenager is the WORST! Pimples, parents, peer-pressure, prom — you don’t want to ever have to relive those years, right? Don’t worry — you don’t have to, in real-life that is! Join the Chicago Film Archives at the Chicago Cultural Center for a wild and wacky selection of social guidance educational films from the 1950’s — 1980’s that were made for teens and their parents. Come and watch teens get busted for making the same stupid mistakes you did!

Featuring THE AGE OF TURMOIL (1953) and other educational films formerly owned by the Chicago Public Library.

Chicago Cultural Center
Claudia Cassidy Theater
78 E. Washington
Chicago, IL 60610

Time: 7pm
Admission: Free
Donations welcome!

December 3, 2009

Tinsel The Town

As highly-anticipated and all-around delightful as your annual visit
from Santa Claus (or the Scrooge), the Chicago Film Archives returns to the Chicago Cultural Center on December 3rd with a program of cinematic treats and treasures. Escape from the hustle and bustle of the holiday season and return to that crazy feeling of excitement, wonder, and amazement you experienced this time of year as a child.

When: Thursday, December 3, 2009
Time: 7:00pm
Where: The Chicago Cultural Center,
78 East Washington, Chicago, Illinois
How Much: Free!

Home Movies From Chicago Film Archives’ Collection excerpts

The Big Downtown Christmas (Sharp collection, 1962, 9 minutes)

Craftmaster Toy Commercial excerpt (Goldsholl collection, 4 minutes)

Glove Love Excerpt (Goldsholl collection, 4 minutes)

The Little King (Conneely collection, 8 minutes)

Intergalactic Zoo #5 (Goldsholl collection, 4 minutes)

The Night Before Christmas (Conneely collection, 8 minutes)

Christmas Time - A Happy Time (Chicago Public Library collection, 9.5 minutes)

Wheelchair Accessible - Senior Friendly

For more information call 312-243-1808

November 1 and November 4, 2009

To Save and Project Festival

Three films by Chicago filmmaker Margaret Conneely - Chicago: City to See in 63, The 45, Mister E

These three CFA films were chosen by the Museum of Modern Art and New York Women in Films & Television for their annual Save and Project festival.

The Women's Film Preservation Fund and Colorlab sponsored the preservation of these films.

Where:
Museum of Modern Art - New York
11 West 53rd Street
New York, New York 10019

When:
November 1, 2009 at 5:30pm
November 4, 2009 at 4:30pm

www.moma.org/visit/calendar/film_screenings/7844

October 17, 2009

Chicago Home Movie Day

The Chicago Cultural center
78 East Washington
Chicago, Illinois

Free film inspection!
3:00pm - 6:00pm

CFA archivists will inspect and/or screen your home movies!
Learn how to make your home movies safe and sound for years to come.

Make an appointment by contacting Anne Wells or
Nancy Watrous

anne@chicagofilmarchives.org or call 312-243-1808
nancy@chicagofilmarchives.org or call 773-478-3799

Free Screening of YOUR home movies along with others!
6:00pm - 9:00pm

The whole family is welcome! Live music to accompany your film! Win prizes with Home Movie Day Bingo!!

We are SENIOR FRIENDLY and have ACCESS FOR DISABLED.

For more information call 312-243-1808 or 773-478-3799

November 1 and November 4, 2009

To Save and Project Festival

Three films by Chicago filmmaker Margaret Conneely - Chicago: City to See in 63, The 45, Mister E

These three CFA films were chosen by the Museum of Modern Art and New York Women in Films & Television for their annual
Save and Project festival.

The Women's Film Preservation Fund and Colorlab sponsored the preservation of these films.

Where:
Museum of Modern Art - New York
11 West 53rd Street
New York, New York 10019

When:
November 1, 2009 at 5:30pm
November 4, 2009 at 4:30pm

www.moma.org/visit/calendar/film_screenings/7844

May 15, 2009

Chicago Film Archives and The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs present
Out of the Vault


Where:
Chicago Cultural Center, Claudia Cassidy Theater, 78 East Washington, Chicago, Illinois
When:
May 15, 2009
Time:
7:00pm
Admission: Free - Donations Welcome!

Beneath the Underdogs: Mingus & Partch provides a glimpse into the lives, homes, and working methods of two brilliant and eccentric musicians: Charles Mingus and Harry Partch. Odd, marginalized, and totally out there - both Mingus and Partch were radical (and often misunderstood) artists whose adaptation of an alternative lifestyle is inseparable from their groundbreaking music.

These two rarely screened 16mm film portraits showcase each artist in a period of transition - Mingus on the eve of his eviction from his Great Jones Street loft in 1966 and Partch in his cramped home-studio in Chicago.

Mingus (Thomas Reichman, 1968, 58m)
Music Studio: Harry Partch (Madeline Tourtelot, 1958, 16mm, 18m)

Peter Margasak will be on hand for questions after the screening

Tuesday, May 26

Three by Don Klugman

The Chicago Film Archives presents new 16mm preservation prints (funded by the National Film Preservation Foundation) of three films by the unique Chicago-based filmmaker Don Klugman.

Nightsong (1964, 23 min.)
A portrait of the Chicago Near-North nightlife scene in the mid-1960s, centering around the struggles and romantic desires of an African American singer played by long-forgotten folk sensation Willie Wright.

I’Ve Got This Problem (1966, 8 min.)
Traces the romantic relationship between a young man and woman (played by Klugman and Judy Harris) who meet in a downtown coffee shop; their nonstop dialogue fluctuates between playful psycho-babble and sincere attempts to relay their innermost feelings.

You’re Putting Me On (1969, 17 min.)
This film seems to pick up the same couple (again played by Klugman and Harris) a few years later, as they attend a swinging bohemian party where
they pilfer personal objects from the unsuspecting guests.
(Michelle Puetz)

Don Klugman will be present for audience discussion.

When:
May 26, 2009
Time:
8:15pm
Where:
Gene Siskel Film Center
164 North State Street
Chicago, Illinois 60601

Special parking rates at Interpark Self Park
20 East Randolph
Validate your parking stubs at the box office

Senior Accessibility

For further information, please call (773) 478-3799

January 2009

Chicago Film Archives along with The Gene Siskel Film Center and the Chicago Cultural Center present
Howard Alk: A Life on the Edge

A Film Retrospective Hosted by Chicago Public Radio’s
Alison Cuddy

As part of CFA's initiative to shed light on the many unheralded local filmmakers, CFA is producing a first-ever film retrospective of the life, work, and times of the late Chicago filmmaker Howard Alk. Alk entered the University of Chicago at the age of 14 in 1944, co-founded The Second City in 1959, and went on to become a brilliant and sought after film editor of the counter-culture film scene until his death in 1982. Early in his film career, he became inextricably entwined in the African-American perspective. Alk edited composer Ed Bland's striking avant-garde film The Cry of Jazz in the 50s, and the political documentaries The Murder of Fred Hampton and American Revolution 2 in the 60s. Finding political and social expression within the music scene as well, he edited Murray Lerner's Festival, a compilation of performances from the Newport Folk Festival; directed Janis, a portrait of Janis Joplin, and collaborated with Bob Dylan in Eat the Document, Hard Rain and Renaldo and Clara in the 60s and 70s. This retrospective will not only paint a portrait of Alk's short career, but of those complicated and turbulent times.

Howard Alk Film Series
Programs include interview excerpts from the CFA archives

January 9, 2009
8:00pm
Janis
Gene Siskel Film Center
164 North State Street, Chicago

January 14, 2009
7:00pm
Festival
Guest Speaker and Director – Murray Lerner
Chicago Cultural Center
Claudia Cassidy Theater
78 East Washington, Chicago

January 16, 2009
8:00pm
Seasons Change
Guest Speaker and filmmaker – Peter Kuttner
Luxman Baul’s Movie
Guest Speaker – University of Illinois musicologist, Charlie Capwell
Gene Siskel Film Center
164 North State Street, Chicago

January 21, 2009
7:00pm
Murder Of Fred Hampton
Guest Speaker and co-founder of The People’s Law Office – Dennis Cunningham
Chicago Cultural Center
Claudia Cassidy Theater
78 East Washington, Chicago

January 23, 2009
8:00pm
American Revolution 2
Guest Speaker - filmmaker Jones Cullinan
Gene Siskel Film Center
164 North State Street, Chicago

January 28, 2009
7:00pm
Search For The Lost Self
Cry Of Jazz
Guest Speaker filmmaker & composer – Ed Bland
Chicago Cultural Center
Claudia Cassidy Theater
78 East Washington, Chicago

February 1, 2009
5:00pm
And This Is Free
My Friend Vince
Panelists– Filmmakers Mike Gray, Jones Cullinan, Gordon Quinn and David Rothberg.
Moderator – Judy Hoffman
Gene Siskel Film Center
164 North State Street, Chicago

Schedule and speakers subject to change.

Many thanks to our sponsors who bring us this programming.

Draupnir, LLC
National Endowment for the Arts
Kartemquin Films
Hugh M. Hefner Foundation
The Chicago Film Office
This program is made possible in part by a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Illinois General Assembly.

November 12-15
Savannah, Georgia

Chicago Film Archives presents at the Association of Moving Image Archivists Annual Conference

October 18

Chicago Home Movie Day

The Chicago Cultural Center
78 East Washington
Chicago, Illinois 60602

3:00pm - 6:00pm
Home Movie Inspection

Walk in or call 773 478-3799 to reserve time for CFA archivists to inspect your
home movies that day!

6:00pm - 10:00pm
Home Movie Program

See your own home movies screened in front of a live audience with live musical accompaniment!!
Win prizes with Home Movie Day Bingo!!!

For more information call 773 478-3799.

July 25 and 26
Bucksport, Maine

Chicago Film Archives presents at the 2008 Northeast Historic Film Symposium
Many Chicagos: Utopian Promises and Urban Ruin in Post-War Chicago

MichellePuetz and Andy Uhrich

Chicago, My Town: Selections from the Chicago Film Archives

When:
May 30, 2008
7:30pm

Where:
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue
New York, New York 10003
(212) 505-5181

Ranging from portraits of the city of Chicago to documents of radical political and social upheaval, and from amateur productions to the work of industry professionals, this program from the Chicago Film Archives showcases films that are both personal and political, and which portray, in a variety of different ways, a city and people in conflict.
Total running time 92 minutes.

Chicago: The City To See In ’63
(Margaret Conneely, 1962, 16mm preservation print, sound, color, 12min)
Produced and exhibited to encourage members of the Photographic Society of America to visit Chicago for the society’s annual conference in 1963, award-winning amateur filmmaker Margaret Conneely’s portrait of Chicago is one in which the city is both an omniscient narrator and a living, breathing, speaking organism.

Nightsong
(Don B. Klugman, 1965, 16mm, sound, color, 22min)
Winner of the Coupe Kodak-Pathe prize at the Cannes Film Festival and a top-ten finalist in the 1964 Amateur Cinema League and American International Film & Video Festival, Nightsong features probably the only extant performance footage of long-forgotten African-American folk sensation Willie Wright.

Super Up
(Kenji Kanesaka, 1966, 16mm, sound, color, 14min)
Kenji Kanesaka, one of the founding members of the “Film Independent” group and the Japan Filmmakers Co-op in Tokyo, was commissioned by Chicago producer Marv Gold to direct Super Up in 1965. The film is an exceptional and striking critique of structures of racial and class segregation, consumerism and lust, sexual energy and desire, and the domination of (and link between) advertising, consumption, sexuality, and the police.

Ratamata
(Jeff Kreines, 1971, 16mm, sound, b/w, 9min)
Ratamata was shot by filmmaker Jeff Kreines on Veterans Day in 1970 when he was only 16 years old. In 1971, the film showed at the Ann Arbor Film Festival and was selected as a “Young Chicago Filmmakers Festival” award winner; Kreines left high school not long after its completion to focus on making films full-time.

8 Flags For 99 Cents
(Chuck Olin, 1970, 16mm, sound, color, 35min)
Commissioned by Gordon Sherman to make a film that would be broadcast on local television to counter the conservative and prowar bent of the news media, Chuck Olin’s 8 Flags For 99 Cents was originally conceived as a propaganda film which would juxtapose horrific news footage of the violence and destruction in Vietnam with conservative, pro-war interviews of suburban Chicagoans. To Olin’s surprise, the middle-American working people he interviewed (dubbed by Spiro Agnew the “silent majority”) were reflective, conflicted, and resolutely against the United States’ continued involvement in Vietnam. 8 Flags For 99 Cents serves as a terrifying reminder that the current disaster in Iraq is just the latest chapter in a history of self-serving US military invasions under the guise of liberation and democracy.

Program and notes by Michelle Puetz

Out of the Vault: Year of Confrontation

When:
Friday, May 16, 2008
7:00pm

Where:
Chicago Cultural Center
Claudia Cassidy Theater
78 East Washington
Chicago, Illinois

Admission:
Free (All donations welcome!)

Special Guests: Bill Cottle, producer of the Urban Crisis series, Ruth Ratney, writer of What Trees Do They Plant? and artist/filmmaker/reporter Franklin McMahon will be present for discussion after the films.

Audio presentation from the Franklin McMahon Collection.

Out Of The Vault - Year Of Confrontation
Out Of The Vault - Year Of Confrontation revisits the turbulent week in August 1968 when the Democratic National Convention
turned Chicago into the frontlines of a larger political and social conflict. The world had already experienced the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the May uprisings in Paris, the brutal quelling of the Prague Spring and intensifying bloodshed in Viet Nam. Occurring under the watchful cameras of the news media, the protests and riots in Chicago shocked the nation and further polarized the opposing forces of authority and protest.

Chicago Film Archives is honored to present the premiere exhibition of three newly preserved prints from the Film Groups’ Urban Crisis series. Many thanks to the National Film Preservation Foundation and Colorlab for supporting the preservation of these films.

The Right To Dissent: A Press Conference
The Film Group, 1969, 16mm preservation print, sound, b/w, 9 minutes
This film examines the struggle between citizens’ right to express their political views and the limits regulated by the City of Chicago. As the right to dissent collides with the suppression of political expression to preserve order, the violence that erupts becomes inescapable.

Social Confrontation: The Battle Of Michigan Avenue
The Film Group, 1969, 16mm preservation print, sound, b/w, 11 minutes
On Wednesday afternoon the legal gathering of demonstrators at Grant Park turns into an unruly scene of teargas and swinging nightsticks when a line of police officers charge the crowd. Social Confrontation further captures the hostile clashes in front of the Conrad Hilton and the ensuing war of words on the Convention floor.

Law And Order Vs. Dissent
The Film Group, 1969, 16mm preservation print, sound, b/w, 11 minutes
At a press conference on Thursday, August 29th a spokesman for the Chicago Police Department attempts to influence the media coverage of the previous night’s violence. Incorporating interviews with Mayor Daley and various representatives of the police, this film closely examines methods of propaganda and political spin.

The DVD of What Trees Do They Plant is mastered from an original broadcast tape shown in 1968, and therefore has a lower image quality from the preserved films from the Urban Crisis series.

What Trees Do They Plant?
Henry Ushijima Productions for the City of Chicago, 1968, 60 minutes, DVD from original broadcast 2” tape
In response to a perceived imbalance of the media’s coverage, the City of Chicago hired Henry Usijima, an industrial filmmaker in Park Ridge, to make this film for television distribution in a hurried 5 days. Barely two weeks after the end of the convention the program screened on 140 stations across the nation. Appealing to the moderate middle of the road viewer shocked by the images of the convention, it focuses on the violent intentions of the protestors and ties them to international communist forces through interviews with police officers harmed in the disturbances, news footage intended to indict protesters with their own words, and secret police surveillance films.

For more information, please call (773) 478-3799

Chicago Film Archives and Willie Dixon’s Blues Heaven Foundation present
Singing Streams: Roots of Gospel and Blues

Where:
Willie Dixon’s Blues Heaven Foundation
2120 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60616

When:
Saturday, March 15, 2008
7:00pm–9:00pm

Admission: $5.00

For more information call:
Chicago Film Archives at (773) 478-3799 or
Blues Heaven Foundation at (312) 808 1286

Sonny Terry: Shoutin’ The Blues
Yasha Aginsky, 1969, 16mm, 5 minutes
Shot at an Oakland Motel on Sonny Terry’s birthday, this single-shot film highlights the magnetic personality of the veteran singer and harmonica player. Sonny recounts the story of how he came to have a part in the hit Broadway Musical Finian’s Rainbow and plays a song from the production for which the film is named – Shoutin’ The Blues.

The Sun’s Gonna Shine
Les Blank, 1969, 16mm, 10 minutes
This imagining of Lightnin’ Hopkins childhood and his desire to escape working in the cotton fields is a remembrance of both the comfort of his hometown of Centerville, Texas as well as his desire to hit the road. Through Hopkins’ narration and performances, as well as dramatized scenes of him as a young boy, the film reveals the relationship between his music and the land from which it came.

Black Delta Religion
Bill Ferris, Josette Ferris, 1973, 8mm/16mm, 14 minutes
Beautifully filmed on grainy Super 8, Black Delta Religion brings us inside the Baptist Church rituals of the Mississippi delta. It’s an intense world, filled with fiery preachers and parishioners inhabited by the Holy Spirit. The soundtrack of deeply felt, mostly a cappella gospel can only be described as “close to the source”.

A Singing Stream: A Black Family Chronicle
Tom Davenport, 1986, 16mm, 57 minutes
The film that inspired this program recounts the story of North Carolina’s Landis family and the gospel music that has held them together. Centered around a family reunion, the film includes inspiring performances and remembrances from multiple generations, including family matriarch Bertha Landis.

Program and notes by Andy Resek

Chicago Film Archives and the Beverly Arts Center present
Home Movie Day at the Beverly Arts Center

Where:
Beverly Arts Center
2153 West 111th Street
Chicago, Illinois 60655

When:
January 6-15
Submit your home movies for inspection by CFA archivists at the front desk of the Beverly Arts Center

$5 per reel

February 10 2:00-4:00pm
Exhibition of YOUR home movies. All films that are projectable will be shown. Come join your neighbors to share the many stories that make up the Beverly community legacy.

For more information call (773) 478-3799 or (773) 445-3838

Flanked by the Hollywood storytelling machine to the West, and the legacy of art cinema and cinema-verite documentary to the
East, film production in the Chicago metropolis has historically been relegated to the realm of the industrial, commercial, and
educational film. In collaboration with the exhibition ‘The Big Picture: A New View of Painting in Chicago’ at the Chicago History
Museum, these programs explore the connections between these traditions of industrial production and the under-valued amateur and artistic cinematic output of filmmakers working in Chicago and the Midwest.

These programs are a co-presentation of the Chicago Film Archives, the Chicago History Museum, and the Gene Siskel Film
Center. Programming and notes by Michelle Puetz and Andy Uhrich of the Chicago Film Archives.

Gene Siskel Film Center
164 North State Street
Chicago, Illinois

Ticket prices: $9 general admission, $7 students, $4 for student, faculty of the School of the Art Institute, and staff of the Art Institute. $5 Film Center & Chicago History Museum members, with valid membership card.

For more information, please call (773) 478-3799

Program Schedule

Saturday, November 3 at 3:00pm, Tuesday, November 6 at 6:00pm
Cityscape As Landscape: The City As An Ever Variable Constant
Cityscape As Landscape presents the ever-changing Chicago skyline as a backdrop for various cinematic interpretations of urban life. Mid-century films such as Wayne Boyer’s The Building: Chicago Stock Exchange (1975), Jack Behrend’s time-lapse footage of the construction of the Equitable building (1964), James Benning’s Chicago Loop (1976), and Kenji Kanesaka’s Super Up (1966), provide complex portraits of Chicago as rapidly changing
industrial city. Approx running time 75 minutes. (Puetz/Uhrich)

Chicago Loop, James Benning, 1976, 9m
13 Tokens, A Challenge, Central Cinematographers, 1967, 15m
The Building: Chicago Stock Exchange, Wayne Boyer, 1975, 12m
Chicago Breakdown, Gary Brown, 1970’s, 14m
Super Up, Kenji Kanesaka, 1966, 14m
Equitable Building – Time Lapse Footage, Jack Behrends, 1964, 4m
Caille Family Home Movies - “Riverview”, Caille Family from the collection of
  Dave Drazin, 1932-43, 7m

Saturday, November 10 at 3:00pm, Tuesday, November 13 at 6:00pm
Domestic Portraiture
This program illustrates the manner in which cinematic conventions are embedded in amateur film production, as well as the various ways in which non-professional films challenge the candy-coated portraits of domestic life presented by Hollywood and television. The home becomes a battleground of sorts in Margaret Conneely’s wonderful illustration of a group of fed-up housewives’ revenge on their husbands in Mister E (1959), while in Peter Kuttner’s Mary Had a Little Lamb (1966), a young African American couple’s budding romance is the front line in the struggle between the sacred and the secular. Approx running time 77 minutes. (Puetz/Uhrich)

Mr. E, Margaret Conneely, 1959, 12m
The 45, Margaret Conneely, 1960, 14m
Mary Had a Little Lamb, 1966, 8m
The Dedication of Temple Sholom, Abraham and Edward Weiss, 1928, 10m
Ricky and Rocky, Tom Palazzolo and Jeff Kreines, 1972, 15m
Caille Family Home Movies – “The Brat”, Caille Family from the collection of Dave Drazin, 1932-43, 6m
Dance Party Home Movie, excerpt, from the collection of Nick Osborn,
  1950’s, 8m
Double Exposed Baby Home Movie, excerpt, from the collection of
  Nick Osborn, 4m

Sunday, November 18 at 5:00pm, Tuesday, November 20 at 8:00pm
Form Becomes Function: The Institute Of Design And The Art In Industry
Founded in 1937, László Moholy-Nagy’s Institute of Design has left a lasting legacy on the industrial and commercial creative output of the city of Chicago. Joining films directed by Moholy-Nagy with the work of his students and associates, this program examines the intersection of art and functionality, inspiration and occupation, and the visionary and the market driven in works that range from pure abstraction to the purely utilitarian. Films screening include László Moholy-Nagy’s Ein Lichtspiel - schwarz weiss grau (1930), Morton and Millie Goldsholl’s Union Pier Film Experiments (1942), and Ken Josephson’s 33rd and LaSalle (1962). Approx running time 72 minutes. (Puetz/Uhrich)

Lichtspiel: Schwarz-Weiss-Grau, László Moholy-Nagy, 1930, 5m
Union Pier 1942 Film Experiments, Morton & Millie Goldsholl, 1942, 14m
Golf High Speed Footage, Jack Behrends, 1960’s, 1.5m
Do Not Disturb, Institute of Design Students under the direction of László
  Moholy Nagy, 1945, 20m excerpt
Design Workshop, László Moholy-Nagy, 1944, 15m excerpt
33rd and Lasalle, Ken Josephson, 1962, 10m
Drop City, Wayne Boyer, 1968, 6m

Sunday, November 25 at 3:00pm, Tuesday, November 27 at 8:15pm
An Accidental Avant-garde
This final program emphasizes Chicago’s unique contribution to art cinema and the filmic avant-garde. While most of these films can be categorized as experimental in form, they were produced by filmmakers who made a living by making films ranging from commercials and educational films to soft-core pornography. Films screening will include an unusual selection of regional home movies, Red Grooms’ Tappy Toes (1969), a comic-musical depiction of the late-60’s art group the “Hairy-Who” starring Ed Paschke, and Don Klugman’s Nightsong (1965), a portrait of Chicago’s Near-North nightclub scene which features legendary African-American folk singer Willie Wright. Approximate running time 77 minutes. (Puetz/Uhrich)

Tappy Toes, Red Grooms, 1969, 19m
Nightsong, Don Klugman, 1965, 22m
The Saga of the First and Last, Margaret Conneely, 1954, 4m
Babbit Blast, Jack Behrends, 1961, 12m
Night Driving, Morton & Millie Goldsholl, 1957, 9m
Lunar and Solar Eclipse Home Movies, from the collection of Nick Osborn,
  1960’s, 6m
Caille Family Home Movies – “Let’s Make a Picture!”, Caille Family from the
  collection of Dave Drazin, 1932-43, 5m

A reprise of this spring's Out of the Vault program (with a few new surprises!) Chicago, My Town: Portraits From The Margins provides a delightful glimpse into Chicago Film Archives' holdings of unique and often overlooked films, each poking around Chicago's corners with a slightly skewed lens. These extraordinary 16mm films explore lives we lived in our town from the 60s, 70s and 80s.

LaSalle Bank Cinema
4901 West Irving Park Road
Chicago, Illinois

Parking and entrance to the theater at the back of the bank.

7:00pm

Admission: $5
For more information call 773 478 3799

Supported by Draupnir LLC and the Illinois Film Office

This project is partially supported by a City Arts Program
i grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural
Affairs and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.

The Chicago Cultural Center
78 East Washington
Chicago, Illinois 60602

Bring your amateur and home movies in for free
inspection by CFA archivists. Then we will screen your films in the evening. A perfect time to explain yourself, your family, your friends. Win prizes with Home Movie Day Bingo!

Tom Palazzolo will kick off the night with Rickey and Rocky at their wedding shower 30 some years ago.

3:00pm - 6:00pm:
Film inspection and submit for screening

6:00pm - 9:00pm:
Home Movie screening.

For more information, call 773 478 3799

Admission is free!

Out of the Vault – Chicago, My Town: Portraits from the Margins
6pm – approximate running time 64 minutes

Vignettes selected spots: “The Controllers” & “Marina City Waitress”
(Harry Mantel, 1970’s, 16mm, sound, color, 8min)
Funded in part by Encyclopedia Brittanica, these short spots were directed by local cameraman, producer, and journalist Harry Mantel – most likely for television broadcast. These films are only two of many bizarre portraits he constructed of the city and its people – other subjects Mantel explored include the various manifestations of fire, square dancing, circus and zoo animals (featuring some very talented dancing dogs), and an arts and crafts fair complete with many a macramé'8e booth. These two Vignettes, both set to swinging soundtracks, are snazzy and fun-loving examinations of their subjects, yet Mantel’s voyeuristic camerawork lends them an underlying sensation of imminent doom.