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.

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.

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.

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.