The Camille Cook Collection consists of outtakes, work prints, original negatives, collected films, home movies, and edited diary films of the experimental and personal work of Camille Cook, filmmaker and founder of The Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (now The Gene Siskel Film Center). The films depict various aspects of Cook’s life in Chicago throughout the mid 1960s, ranging from images of city street life to moments with her friends and family in Western Springs, IL, as well as her experiments in structural filmmaking.

The John and Marilyn Sanner collection contains 16mm, 8mm and Super 8mm amateur and home movie films. John and Marilyn Sanner were members of the Metro Movie Club, a local amateur filmmaking club (1940s-1980s), during the later years of the organization (1972-1987). John Sanner of Deerfield, Illinois shot the majority of the films in this collection. He shot both amateur films and home movies, including footage of Deerfield High School football games, the Chicago snow blizzard of 1979, a behind-the-scenes look at a Metro Movie Club production and a short documentary about the arrival of a Vietnamese family to Deerfield by way of a refuge camp in Hong Kong. The collection also includes films made by John's brother Richard Sanner, who taught at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and established the audiovisual department at the University of Hawaii in 1957. Richard's films include home movies from the Sanner home in Iowa, as well as footage depicting the eruption of Kilauea volcano in 1960.

The Julian Gromer Collection includes 15 travelogues and related papers by filmmaker Julian Gromer. The films depict his travels to Cuba, Nigeria, around Lake Michigan, Hawaii two months before Pearl Harbor, Canada, up the Amazon and Hudson rivers, and three films of cross-country cycling. Gromer was represented by the Redpath Bureau and co-owned Ralph Windoes Travelogues, Inc. His work is representative of post-World War II travelogue lectures that were exhibited in a variety of non-theatrical venues.

The Marion and Maurice Kaplan Collection contains home movies shot and compiled by Maurice Kaplan of Chicago, Illinois. Maurice shot 16mm films from the 1940s through 1950s. The collection depicts his travels to Hawaii, as member of the U.S. Army in World War II, and family weddings, other celebrations, and vacations at Glen, Michigan; Lincoln Park Zoo; Union Pier; and Lakeside.

The Mary Heftel Hooton collection includes Super 8mm home movies of vacations she and her husband, William Heftel, took from 1967-1973. The films document trips to Japan, Hawaii, Norway, Antartica, Australia, and the Bahamas. Hooton was a lawyer and Illinois judge. Heftel was a Chicago area realtor.

Series III includes films made by John's brother Richard Sanner. During the 1950s and 1960s, Richard lived in Minneapolis, MN, and Honolulu, HI. The majority of the films in this series appear to have been shot while Richard was living in Hawaii, most significantly including many reels documenting the eruption of Kilauea in 1960.