News

September 12, 2025

Hundreds of reels of Chicago history through the lens of Bill Stamets, digitized with support from a CLIR Recordings at Risk grant

CFA has digitized 271 films by Bill Stamets that document Chicago history and "a miscellany of civic occasions where Americans make sense of power." They are now publicly available to watch and explore through our website!

August 5, 2025

NFPF Grant to preserve The New World of Stainless Steel

Chicago Film Archives has been awarded a Basic Preservation grant by the National Film Preservation Foundation for the photochemical preservation of The New World of Stainless Steel (1960), a jaunty, jazzy, and somewhat surreal Technicolor industrial film produced by Chicago's Wilding Pictures Productions for Republic Steel.

August 1, 2025

New Digital Preservation and Storage Systems at CFA

After more than a year of research, planning, and handcrafted execution, CFA has finally completed the rollout of a suite of new systems and workflows for organizing, preserving, and storing the thousands of digital copies of films that we archive at CFA.

September 24, 2024

Help us reach our 20th birthday goal!

As our 20th year comes to a close, we need your help to reach our goal of raising $20,000 to support the preservation of Chicago’s moving image histories and tens of thousands of films, audiotapes and videotapes!

September 10, 2024

CFA awarded NFPF Avant-Garde Masters grant to preserve 8mm films by JoAnn Elam

The Avant-Garde Masters program of the National Film Preservation Foundation has awarded Chicago Film Archives funding to photochemically preserve six short 8mm films by independent filmmaker JoAnn Elam.

August 27, 2024

NEH Awards CFA $10k for digital preservation planning

The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded Chicago Film Archives a $10,000 grant for the project "Creating a Plan for the Storage, Preservation and Maintenance of CFA's Digital Assets" as part of their Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions program.

August 2, 2024

CLIR Awards CFA $44k Recordings at Risk Grant to Digitize Sound Films by Bill Stamets

The grant will support "Small Gauge, Big Shoulders: Digitizing Bill Stamets’ Super-8 Magnetic Sound Films of Public Life in Chicago," a project that will result in the digitization and cataloging of approximately 70 hours of Super-8 sound film from the Bill Stamets Collection.

August 1, 2024

CFA Awarded National Film Preservation Foundation Grant to Preserve Five Midwestern Amateur Films

CFA has been awarded a Basic Preservation grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation for the photochemical preservation of five short midwestern amateur films. These technically ambitious, decidedly offbeat sound films were each made without institutional support by people who were not professional filmmakers.

July 9, 2024

Are you a resident of Garfield Park or an adjacent neighborhood?

CFA would like to talk to you about digitizing your home movies — for free! — as part of a new initiative.

January 11, 2024

Chicago Film Archives: 2004 to 2024

We now inhabit CFA’s 20th year of operations — a full generation of fabulous people and phenomenal deeds. Some things have stayed the same and so much has changed.

October 13, 2023

CFA Receives Avant-Garde Masters Grant to Preserve Tom Palazzolo’s Caligari’s Cure

We are delighted to announce that the National Film Preservation Foundation and The Film Foundation have awarded Chicago Film Archives an Avant-Garde Masters Grant to photochemically preserve Tom Palazzolo’s first feature film, Caligari’s Cure (1982).

August 23, 2023

NFPF Funds CFA Preservation of Four Films by Bill Stamets

CFA is thrilled to have been awarded a Preservation Grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation to photochemically preserve four films by Super-8 filmmaker Bill Stamets.

September 27, 2022

CFA preserves Morrison-Shearer dance films

CFA is extremely happy to announce that we are the recipients of a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation to photochemically preserve eight solo dances from the Morrison-Shearer Foundation collection. These dances were created and performed by choreographer/dancer Sybil Shearer and filmed by her artistic partner, photographer Helen Morrison. These films transcend a mere recording of choreography and performance: they present an elevation and synthesis of each...

December 14, 2021

The Murder of Fred Hampton Selected for the National Film Registry

  Chicago Film Archives is proud to announce that the National Film Preservation Board has selected The Murder of Fred Hampton (1971) for the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress. Launched in 1989 to showcase and promote the preservation of America’s film legacies, the National Film Preservation Board selects 25 films from a pool of thousands of titles...

June 21, 2021

CFA Receives NFPF Grant to Preserve Three 35mm Films

CFA is happy to to share that we have been awarded a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation to photochemically preserve three 35mm nitrate films from our Charles E. Krosse Collection. The films being preserved include: Paying the Piper (ca.1936), anti–New Deal snipe produced by the Jam Handy Organization.           Peoria Community Fund Campaign Film (ca.1935), portrait of 23 local charitable...

February 2, 2021

Uncovering New Stories Through the NEH CARES Grant

In June 2020, CFA received generous support from a CARES grant, which was made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities and designed to help us delve into our collections and make more stories and films accessible to the public. During this exceptionally difficult time (on so many levels), we were tasked with finding new ways to work with...

January 26, 2021

CFA Receives Grant to Preserve 2 Films by Maurice Bailen

CFA is happy to announce that we have received a Preservation Grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation for the photochemical preservation of two films from the Maurice Bailen Collection, The City (ca. 1966) and Confrontation (ca. 1968). Both films are original 16mm work prints, and no other copies are known to exist. Maurice Bailen (1902-1980) was a Chicago-based filmmaker who is well-regarded and...

August 3, 2020

‘Lost’ Film From 1923 Uncovered in CFA Collection

In late June 2020, while weathering the coronavirus pandemic, Chicago Film Archives’ staff rediscovered a 35mm domestic distribution print of ‘lost’ silent feature film, The First Degree, within our collections. Hiding in plain sight among agricultural and sponsored films that came out of Peoria, Illinois, was a Universal production that likely hadn’t been exhibited in 97 years. With only 25%...

June 26, 2020

CFA Receives NEH CARES Relief Grant

Chicago Film Archives is proud to announce that it is the recipient of a CARES grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The award, in the amount of $54,743, will be used to uncover the Midwest histories hidden within four varied and distinctive collections in our care. According to the National Endowment for the Humanities, the NEH received...

June 4, 2020

ENGAGE!

To Bear Witness: The Question of Violence (2006 panel discussion)   One of the earliest collections that arrived at CFA’s door was from William Cottle and Mike Gray of The Film Group. The work of Don Klugman (Nightsong), JoAnn Elam (Everyday People) and DeWitt Beall (Lord Thing) followed closely behind. The appointed stewardship of these collections invigorated our own understanding...