Can you believe it? This year marks the 10th anniversary of Home Movie Day – the international, annual, all-around good time BYO home movie event.

Home Movie Day is a celebration of amateur films and filmmaking held annually at many local venues worldwide. It was conceived by the Center for Home Movies in 2002 as a means to promote the preservation and appreciation of home movies. Chicago Film Archives has been honored to host the annual Chicago Home Movie Day for the past 8 years!

Like years past, CFA archivists will hand inspect your celluloid (16mm., 8mm., & Super 8mm.) home movies and project them in front of a live audience. As always, this event depends on YOU and your family or found treasures (of course those without films are welcome as well!!). This year’s event will also feature a curated screening of home movies from CFA and local film collectors.

CFA firmly believes that the public presentation of these family legacies builds and strengthens communities. This event is not only a celebration of lives well lived, it is an opportunity to reconsider these home movies as historical records that have value to our culture, reaching far beyond the family.

More information TBA.

Chicago Film Archives and portoluz present:

FEMININE RECALL

Featuring EVERYDAY PEOPLE (JoAnn Elam, 1979-1990) and UNION MAIDS (Klein, Reichart, Mogulescu, 1976) – two Chicago-based films that take a look at gender issues related to labor. This program contributes to portoluz’s year long program “WPA 2.0,” about the depression-era WPA and it’s relevance to the current economic and labor situation today.

EVERYDAY PEOPLE, 1979-1990, JoAnn Elam, Video, 22 min.
JoAnn Elam (1949-2009) was a feminist, experimental filmmaker whose films and papers were recently donated to Chicago Film Archives. Her unfinished project, EVERYDAY PEOPLE (filmed from 1979 to 1990), is based on her experiences as a letter carrier for the US Postal Service in Chicago. Camera in hand, Elam follows co-workers as they deliver the mail throughout various Chicago neighborhoods. Elam’s construction of this film-in-progress creates a lovely cadence and rhythm that transforms the repetitive motions of the postal worker – pushing the mail cart, carrying the bag, avoiding the dogs, opening the gates, and climbing the steps to the front door – to something poetic yet startlingly familiar. Their stories (heard mostly in voice-over) are those of everyday people who at the time struggled with issues of race and gender in relationship to their work. Papers suggest that Elam intended to expand the story into the political struggles they faced with the administration and the union, as well as larger issues related to the history of labor struggle and activism in the United States. EVERYDAY PEOPLE was never released. This is the first public screening of this film in the form of a rough-cut and works as an introduction to Elam’s creative processes that spanned over a decade.

UNION MAIDS, 1976, Jim Klein, Julia Reichart, Miles Mogulescu, 16mm., 55 min.
Nominated for an Oscar as Best Documentary Feature in 1976, UNION MAIDS is a film about three Chicago women who lived through the raucous and sometimes violent era of the 1930s depression. Forty years later, Kate Hyndman, Stella Nowicki and Sylvia Woods recall with surprising clarity the labor movement that took hold during the worst economic downturn in US history. Stella worked in the Chicago Stockyards, Kate worked in a factory that made athletic supporters and Sylvia did laundry. Their stories are intercut with historical footage, and, according to Pauline Kael in 1976, present “one of the most blithe and humorous reports of social struggle we have seen on film.”

Out of the Vault 2012: THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA

This year CFA offers films that speak to the spiritual realms that cleanse, cure, uplift and replenish the American soul. Religion and spirituality are deeply ingrained in our history and culture. Enhanced drama and high ritual spring from religious ceremony and are reflected in many films from CFA’s collections. Join us for an unusual Sunday afternoon with films of the devoted and infuse your souls with some of the good stuff.

Featuring: POMO SHAMAN (1964), LAUDATE (1966) and  HOLY GHOST PEOPLE (1967)
Total Running Time: 84 minutes

Film program curated by Nancy Watrous & Anne Wells

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POMO SHAMAN (from the Minnesota University Collection), William Heick, 1964, b/w, sound, 16mm, 22 min.

POMO SHAMAN documents the second and final night of a Kashaya healing ceremony lead by Essie Parrish (1903-1979), a spiritual and cultural head of the Kashaya community and one of the only southwestern Pomo sucking doctor who still practiced this ancient form of doctoring. Along with her good friend, Cache Creek Pomo medicine woman and fellow basket weaver Mabel McKay, Parrish would be the last of the sucking doctors in California—and probably the last in the entire country (Sarris).

The ceremony took place June 1, 1963 in a ceremonial roundhouse of the Southwestern Pomo (now more commonly referred to as Kashaya) near Stewarts Point, California. During the ceremony (which is presented without narration), Parrish enters a trance and cures a patient with the aid of a spiritual instrument used to suck out the patient’s illness. Parrish only gave the film crew one chance to shoot the ceremony, with no equipment allowed inside the roundhouse where the ceremony took place. All cameras and lighting were setup to shoot through knot holes in the walls, which explains the films dark, high contrast appearance.

William Heick grants us a rare chance to experience a ceremony generally off-limits to cameras and the outside world. According to Heick, Parrish only agreed to be filmed, knowing that their traditions were going to be preserved on film. Heick made the film while Director and Chief Cinematographer for the University of California at Berkeley’s National Science Foundation supported Amercian Indian Film Project. POMO SHAMAN is an edited version of Heick’s larger work SUCKING DOCTOR (1963, 45 minutes).

Works Cited: Sarris, Greg. “PARRISH, Essie. November 29, 1902-July 9, 1979″ (2004). In Notable American Women: Completing the Twentieth Century.

LAUDATE (from the Margaret Conneely Collection), Nicholas Frangakis, 1966, b/w, sound, 16mm, 9 min.

This student film shot in California is about a young boy who must choose between the Benedictine Community and the industrialized modern world. Images of both worlds race through his mind and are set to the score of Igor Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms.” It even features real monks and nuns from the Valyermo, California Benedictine Community! Found in the Margaret Conneely collection, this film is in keeping with her weird and sometimes barely twisted notion of life. Beware of a birth scene that catches by surprise!

HOLY GHOST PEOPLE (from the Southern Illinois University Collection), Peter Adair, 1967, b/w, sound, 16mm, 53 min.

Tucked away in Scrabble Creek, West Virginia, faith is alive and trying to be well. Filmmaker Peter Adair and his crew are welcomed and then ignored at this Pentecostal service where speaking in tongues is considered evidence that God exists. Who hasn’t wanted the concrete proof that we’re sheltered and protected by some higher power? The shrieking and convulsive dancing seem fun and democratic and even cleansing… the testimonials not really that crazy. But the Copperheads and Rattlers bring a touch of tension to the room and once again we’re reminded of the camera crew as they keep a bead on the snakes that are passed around, slithering on the floor and wrapped around the arms of the devoted.

Below is an inventory of films for sale. We will be updating this list as we locate more films to sell, so please check back! (I’ll be sure to leave an inventory date with each update and to emphasize new additions, so you know whether anything has been added.)

*Also please note that 2 of the 3 series (AMERICA and ROOTS) below are presumed color faded. We looked at the first reel of each series to determine the fading of prints, so there’s a small chance that all episodes may not be faded (emphasis on *small*). The opposite goes for the FAT ALBERT series, whose first episode appears to be in great shape. If you are interested in purchasing a series, please contact us before the sale to reserve this purchase.

COST:
$5/faded film, $10/film in good condition, $15/Disney film, $200/ROOTS series (presumed faded), $200/AMERICA series (presumed faded) & $400/FAT ALBERT series.

Inventory list date: February 17, 2012

Well it happened more quickly than we thought it could.  Last year South Side Projections and the South Side Community Arts Center presented a program that included CFA’s THE CORNER (1963, Robert Ford) and a VHS copy of LORD THING, a documentary on the Conservative Vice Lords shot from 1954 to 1969 made by Dewitt Beall.  Over the years, the film materials to the LORD THING had disappeared.  Mike Phillips of South Side Projections gave us some preliminary leads to trace the film elements and prints, but all became dead ends.  That is when CFA contacted Buckey Grimm who said, “If it’s out there, I will find it.”  And BAM, he did!

CFA has received the extensive film materials used to create this extraordinary documentary that over the span of 15 years examines the evolution of the Chicago street gang called the Vice Lords. It “begins in the ghetto streets of the mid-Fifties— a virtual combat zone for dozens of small neighborhood gangs from different parts of the city [that in time unite] forces in a common cause.” The film unfolds within a period that begins when the Supreme Court struck down the practice of segregation to when the civil rights movement was at its height (1954-1969). In 1970, it won the Silver Medal in the Venice Film Festival, but never got into distribution.

A huge debt of gratitude goes to film researcher extraordinaire Buckey Grimm who located the film materials with Elina Katsioula-Beall in California.  She has cared for her husband’s films since his passing and is donating the Beall Collection to Chicago Film Archives. CFA will be submitting a proposal to the National Film Preservation Foundation to preserve this film that documents a typically inaccessible part of Chicago’s past.

If you would like to be a preservation partner of our newest acquisition, the DeWitt Beall collection, give us a call at 312-243-1808 or email info@chicagofilmarchives.org.

- Nancy

Thanks to Andy Resek (andyresek.com), we have this wonderful documentation of Alison Cuddy’s (WBEZ) interview with Ruth Page dancers, Delores Lipinski Long (Ruth Page Center for the Arts, Civic Ballet of Chicago) and Patricia Klekovic Irwin (Ruth Page Center for the Arts). Together, they discuss the behind-the-scenes dance culture that supported and defined the world of twentieth century dance generated by Chicago’s own prima ballerina and choreographer, Ruth Page. The interview took place at CFA’s November 2011 Fundraiser party, which spotlighted the life of Ruth Page, whose legacy now resides in one of CFA’s newest collections – The Ruth Page Collection.

JoAnn Elam Collection:
CFA has begun processing the films of Chicago filmmaker JoAnn Elam (1949-2009), a central figure in the in the history of Chicago’s experimental film community. Due to the superbly generous donation of $5,000 by her sister Susan, we have been able to begin to stabilize this large and complex collection of film materials. Included in this collection are film elements from a work-in-progress (1979-1990) called EVERYDAY PEOPLE, a film that chronicles her experiences as a postal carrier and the people she met along the way. Susan Elam has become a Preservation Patron of the JoAnn Elam Collection.

EVERYDAY PEOPLE (rough cut), JoAnn Elam, 1979-1990

Marquis Ritchey Cring Collection:
And this year, Susan Hayes became a Preservation Sponsor of her father’s home movie collection – The Marquis Ritchey Cring Collection. Marquis Cring (born in Belle Center, Ohio) moved to St. Louis to take a job as head of advertising and public relations at the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad. There he met Irene Ellerbeck, another M-K-T employee, and they married and had there first and only child, Susan. Like many other railroad employees who were amateur filmmakers, he often took his camera (and family) when traveling with the railroad to such places as Mexico, the Ozarks, and Galveston, Tx. These films span the mid 1920s through the mid 1950s. One reel even contains footage of Charles Lindbergh at a 1927 Mexico City bullfight that was held in his honor.

Syliva & Russ Davis Collection:
Also, thanks to Colleen Roberts who is a Preservation Sponsor of the Russ and Sylvia Davis Collection. This might be CFA’s most popular collection consisting of almost 200 pro wrestling matches fought in 1950s Chicago. Each match is announced by radio personality Russ Davis who produced these films for Chicago’s first commercial television station WBKB.

Edouard Carpentier vs Lou Thesz (Jack Dempsey referee), Chicago International Amphitheater, Circa 1957

You, yourself can adopt any CFA collection and be responsible for it’s preservation and archival care. Just go here!

Our recent activity on the Internet Archive has even generated a bit of press around town (thanks Chicagoist!).

Meanwhile, CFA will soon have a searchable database for our collections on our own website, featuring contextual information about our collections as well as the media itself. We are currently in the stage of migrating data from one database to another in order to more easily deploy our data and media for online viewing. We’ll be sure to keep you updated about this difficult and rewarding process!

Join our family of supporters to view select films from the archive, talk with WBEZ’s Eight Forty-Eight host Alison Cuddy, meet dancers Delores Lipinski Long and Patricia Klekovic, and listen to live gypsy jazz. See a special screening of Ruth Page in her 1922 performance of DANSE MACABRE accompanied by the live sounds of Hans van der Hill, Jonathan DeSouza, Dan Abu-Absi and Leroy Bach (formerly of Wilco).

Kick off the holidays with films, music, good company, good food and good spirits!

Food & spirits courtesy of Marion Street Cheese Market.

When:
Saturday, November 19, 2011
What Time:
5pm until 8pm
Where:
Home of Michael Ruehle & Janice Tennant
343 Ashland Avenue
River Forest, IL

Number of attendees:

Single $100.00 Couple $150.00

Names for will- call at door:

Be a partner in the conservation of Chicago’s film legacies by attending Chicago Film Archives Night 11!

5:00-8:00pm
Food, drinks, music and films from the Chicago Film Archives including onscreen commentary by Haskell Wexler, Andrew Davis and other film directors from the Midwest.

6:30pm
WBEZ’s Eight Forty-Eight host, Alison Cuddy, and dancers Delores Lipinski Long (Ruth Page Center for the Arts, Civic Ballet of Chicago) and Patricia Klekovic (Ruth Page Center for the Arts) discuss the behind-the-scenes dance culture that supported and defined the world of twentieth century dance generated by Chicago’s own prima ballerina and choreographer, Ruth Page.

7:15pm
Presentation of the silent film DANSE MACABRE (1922), 8min.
Adolph Bolm – Youth
Ruth Page – Love,
Olin Howland – Death

Live musical accompaniment to DANSE MACABRE by:
Hans van der Hill – Guitar
Jonathan DeSouza – Violin
LeRoy Bach – Guitar, Melodica
Dan Abu-Absi – Bass, Mandolin

7:30pm
Final deadline for the silent auction of screenplay CONTAGION, a script signed by film director Steven Soderberg

To make your reservation, please click on the button above, or send a check or money order to:

Chicago Film Archives
329 West 18^th Street, Suite 3-A
Chicago, IL  60616

CFA is a 501©(3) organization.  Your contribution is deductible to the extent of the law.

For more information contact us at (312) 243-1808, or info@chicagofilmarchives.org

The annual AMIA  conference provides an opportunity for colleagues and those interested in the field of audiovisual preservation to meet, share information, attend screenings and work together.

FAIRY PRINCESS (1956)

Margaret Conneely’s film FAIRY PRINCESS will also be making an appearance in Austin at the Saturday afternoon screening of AMATEUR NIGHT: HOME MOVIES FROM AMERICAN ARCHIVES. AMATEUR NIGHT, which was produced by the Center for Home Movies in 2010, spotlights a selection of amazing amateur films from across the country – including our very own, FAIRY PRINCESS from 1956 (to learn more about FAIRY PRINCESS and the preservation work behind it, visit our preservation page) .

CFA is also bringing one of our new favorite films along with us to compete in the second annual “Reels of Steel” Competition at Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse. For some suspense, we’ll leave the film a surprise a now . . . .