Collections
CFA's collections contain professional and amateur films of all genres, including documentaries, experimental films, and home movies, depicting histories of Chicago, the Midwest and the world. Our online catalog contains thousands of digitized items from our collections along with descriptive catalog records.
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1966 – 1977
The Robert Flaxman Collection consists of 16mm film prints and elements made or worked on by Chicago-based filmmaker Robert Flaxman in the 1960s and 1970s. The films include theatrical short subjects such as CLEO (1966), featuring an enterprising young shoe-shiner, and THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO RALPH WILLIAMS (1969) about the 1968 Chicago Auto Show; a segment of an unfinished feature film starring the cast of Second City ("PTA MEETING"); commercials for products like Yellow Pages phone books and new ATM banking technology; three educational films produced by Coronet Films, including the award-winning BOYHOOD OF GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER (1973); and industrial films.
circa 1960 – 1973
About 80 reels of 16mm film and related materials, including films made, produced, or otherwise associated with Marv and Sue Gold. Both filmmakers were involved with Chicago's Center Cinema Co-op during the 1970s. Marv taught film production at Columbia College Chicago and also worked on commercial and educational films, including for Kling Productions and Coronet Films.
1942 – 1980
Morton & Millie Goldsholl ran Goldsholl Design & Film Associates, one of Chicago’s leading graphic design studios in the 1950s through 1970s. The studio became recognized for their animations, progressive hiring practices and developing corporate branding packages for various companies. Their collection, donated to CFA in 2006 and 2010, contains commercials and industrial films that Goldsholl Associates made for their clients, experimental films and animations made by both Morton and Millie, unedited travel films shot by Morton and Millie and films (primarily animated) that the two collected over the years.
1965 – 2001
The Chuck Olin Collection is comprised of films, videotapes and ephemera made by Chuck Olin from his work at two Chicago area film production companies from the mid-60s to the late 1990s: first with the Film Group/Mike Gray Associates and after 1974 with his own Chuck Olin Associates. Included are political documentaries made by the Film Group on the 1968 Democratic National Convention; television commercials for a variety of clients including Sears, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and politicians running for election; sponsored films for the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Medical Association, and Eli Lilly; educational films for Encyclopaedia Britannica; and a documentary by Olin on the Jewish Brigade in World War II.
circa 1973 – 1981
The Steven Poster collection includes prints and elements for the 35mm film Another Saturday Night, a whimsical portrayal of a night in 1970s Chicago. Also included are political advertisements, commercials, and other fictional works that Poster worked on.
The Rainbow Productions Collection consists of unedited B-roll footage from three travel films made by filmmaker Dirk Wales, founder and president of Rainbow Productions. Formed in 1972, Rainbow Productions was a Chicago-based industrial production company that specialized in educational, documentary, medical and sponsored films. The footage in the Rainbow Productions Collection was shot by Wales in California, New Orleans, and New England, with the intention of creating a travel series on these regions, but the project was never completed.
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Collections in Progress
Our staff is always working to expand CFA's catalog by researching, describing, and digitizing new collections. Here are the collections that are currently in progress.
A collection of 129 16mm films, mainly educational titles.
Materials related to the work of experimental filmmaker and Chicago high school teacher Eleanor Binstock.
13 reels of 16mm adult films rescued from the Oak Theater in Chicago, at Armitage Ave and Western Ave, as it was being cleared out for renovation.
Two 16mm films about Fred Flom, of Menasha, Wisconsin, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam from 1966 to 1973.
Collection of films produced by Guzik as part of his work for various companies during the late 1970s.
circa 1955 – 1958
Collection of 13 home movies from the mid-1950s, most of which were shot by Wilson Hembree of Kansas City, MO.
3 reels of family outings; 1 reel, Bar Mitzvah party, Albany Park, 1956; 1 reel, Carnival, 1956 at the University of Illinois, Champaign.
36 reels of 8mm and Super 8 home movies shot in the Chicago, Albuquerque, and Milwaukee areas.
Home movies on 8mm and Super 8 film.
1968 – 1976
A collection of independent/student films made in the late 1960s and early 1970s in and around Chicago, Park Ridge, and Niles, Illinois.
1950 – 1958
The Elizabeth Pearson Collection consists of twelve reels of 8mm home movies and one 8mm camera. The footage features Pearson family events and vacations shot by Elizabeth Pearson of Chicago.
Collection of 4 16mm home movies.
circa 1949 – 1962
47 reels of 8mm home movies found in a dumpster and donated to CFA. Reel labels indicate that the films depict visits to Europe as well as to Crivitz, Wisconsin. The boxes the films came in indicate the films may have been shot by Emma Puder of 3640 N Janssen Ave in Chicago.
circa 1955 – 1964
The Sanetra Family Collection consists of 27 home movies (including thirteen of 8mm and fourteen of Super 8mm) taken by Charles Sanetra. The films capture family holidays and celebrations – Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, communions, church picnics, parades, and neighborhood sporting events. Among them are documentation of Cardinal Karol Wojtyła’s (Wojtyła) visit to Chicago in 1976 and the 1964 Alaskan earthquake in Anchorage.
Collection of 31 reels of 16mm home movies from a Michigan family.
A collection of educational films, newsreels, and student films.
12 cans of 35mm negatives in cans from National Film Archives - Public Archives Canada.
Collection of 8mm home movies.