News

March 8, 2013

Celebrating International Women’s Day (all year round) at CFA

At CFA we celebrate ladies all year long, but days like International Women’s Day give us a great excuse to further celebrate the abundance of inspiring women associated with our collections –  Katharine Bowden (an early graduate of Valporaiso University), Margaret Conneely (amateur movie-maker extraordinaire), Sylvia Davis (producer of an early 1950s Chicago WBKB-TV wrestling show), Terry Davis (international travelogue...

February 28, 2013

Willie Wright: 1 of 2 Willies Featured in IMAGINATION MUSIC

Nightsong (1964) This Saturday, Chicago Film Archives and the Black Cinema House present a film screening (IMAGINATION MUSIC: DIXON & WIRGHT) about two Chicago artists named Willie – Willie Dixon & Willie Wright. Willie Dixon is a household name in these parts, but there’s a chance you may not have heard of Willie Wright – and that’s ok! We just...

February 27, 2013

SCMS comes to Chicago!

stills from Michelle Puetz & Nathan Holmes’ program “City Symphonies” Each year members of the Society for Cinema & Media Studies (SCMS) meet up for their annual conference in cities throughout the country, and this year (March 6-10)… it just so happens to be in Chicago! The SCMS is the leading scholarly organization in the United States dedicated to promoting...

February 5, 2013

Margaret Heads to the UK!

This March, Margaret Conneely’s MISTER E heads to The Horse Hospital – a three tiered progressive arts venue in London that provides an umbrella for new media, film, fashion, literature and music. A domestic “black comedy,” MISTER E expresses some of the edgier mischief and discontent that women of the 1950s could rarely express openly. This short film narrates the revenge acted out by...

February 1, 2013

Romanticizing Decay

Every so often we run across a reel of film that has been damaged by the elements (water, heat, humidity, etc). Sometimes this deterioration results in beautiful yet horrifying effects. Hypnotic visuals like these are often utilized by New York-based filmmaker Bill Morrison (Chicago born!), who is most well known for his experimental collage film DECASIA (2002). Since our vaults...

January 30, 2013

Out of the Shadows

Left: Sybil Shearer (image courtesy of the Morrison Shearer Foundation); Right: John Neumeier Slowly, slowly modernist dancer and choreographer Sybil Shearer is emerging from the shadows.  After a successful dance premiere at Carnegie Hall in 1941, Shearer decided to come to Chicago to develop her art in the open landscapes of the Midwest.  She built a studio in Northbrook, IL...

January 28, 2013

A Spotlight on Mort & Millie Goldsholl

Full cover and spine of CHICAGO MAKES MODERN At the turn of the new year, University of Chicago Press and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago published the anthology Chicago Makes Modern: How Creative Minds Changed Society. This much-needed scholarship, co-edited by Mary Jane Jacob (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) & Jacquelyn Baas (University of California...

January 17, 2013

Chicago Academy of Sciences: Sidney Downey

Since November I have had the privilege to work on an expansive collection of 16mm films belonging to the Chicago Academy of Sciences. The Chicago Academy of Sciences, dubbed “the first Museum in the West,” was founded in 1857 to give scientists and nature aficionados a place to study and share the specimens they collected. Over the years, the Academy has...

January 11, 2013

8 FLAGS FOR 99 CENTS Restoration

Yesterday we received a newly struck restoration print of Chuck Olin’s 8 FLAGS FOR 99 CENTS (1970) – a rarely seen documentary about a blue-collar community’s growing unease with the Vietnam War. 8 FLAGS FOR 99 CENTS was produced in response to President Nixon’s famous November, 1969 speech when he contrasted the unlawful and vocal anti-war protesters to the respectful “silent...

January 9, 2013

DeWitt Beall Collection Update

About a year ago, CFA went on a quest to find the film materials for LORD THING (1971), a documentary on the Conservative Vice Lords made by Chicago filmmaker and adman Dewitt Beall. Soon after our search began, film researcher Bucky Grimm found the film materials with Elina Katsioula-Beall, who then donated the films to CFA. Elina cared for her...

January 4, 2013

An Early Peek at the Ruth Page Collection!

BOLERO at Ravinia (HIghland Park, IL), 1928 Dancing with the Ravinia Opera as early as 1926, Ruth Page (herself only 26 years old) was also given the chance to choreograph large-scale performances at Ravinia’s north of Chicago outdoor venue. Last year CFA discovered several 35mm nitrate film elements in the Page Collection. As a result of a grant from the...

December 28, 2012

BIG THANKS!

…to so many people. CFA has kept its doors open, the back room chilled, the bench occupied and the telecine humming because of your decisions to support us. We are creating a massive 20th century Midwest/Chicago moving image time capsule that is built by each CFA customer, each CFA donor, and each foundation and agency that supports our work. Thank...

September 28, 2012

Ty Segall Promo w/ CFA Footage!

Super excited to see our footage being used in new shape and forms, including this new commercial for Ty Segall‘s upcoming release on Drag City Records. Video assembly by Kent Lambert, who previously collaborated with CFA & CAVE (another Drag City affiliated entity) during our first annual CFA Media Mixer. (and no, we do not have any copies of WHITE...

August 27, 2012

CFA Media Mixer (in review)

For our first annual CFA Media Mixer benefit at the Hideout, we asked 3 (well, technically 4) local video artists and 3 local musicians to team up and create 3 video pieces made up of CFA footage. These commissioned pieces premiered at the August 17th event to a packed house. We realize some of you couldn’t make it, so here...

July 22, 2012

CFA Collections Go Online!

Left:  VIGNETTES “Waitress” (Harry Mantel, 1970s) ; Right: GWENDOLYN BROOKS (WTTW, 1966) Chicago Film Archives invites you to explore our collections online! Our approach to CFA’s holdings CFA’s films are organized and considered through the lens of each collection.  We first gather information about the collection as a whole in order to better understand its historical relationship to Chicago and...

July 11, 2012

Earliest-known Eiko & Koma film discovered and preserved

Below is a press release from Imogen Smith over at the Dance Heritage Coalition (DHC). In June, we volunteered our services to the DHC and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts by hand inspecting, re-housing and digitizing a reel of 16mm film featuring an early work of the performance duo, Eiko & Koma. We are happy & honored...

June 21, 2012

CFA named “Best Film History Organization”

The A Side cover of this week’s Chicago Reader by Paul Higgins and Paul Octavious. As many of you Chicagolandians already know, each year the Chicago Reader dedicates one of its publications to the “Best of Chicago” list. The list consists of both “Critics’ Picks” and “Readers’ Poll,” or categories voted on by readers of the alternative weekly newspaper. The Critics’...

May 24, 2012

Millie Goldsholl (1920-2012)

Chicago artist and experimental filmmaker Millie Goldsholl passed away yesterday at 92 years old. Her films are among our favorites here at CFA. An early student of the Chicago School of Design (now IIT), Millie created films that are expressions of Maholy Nagy’s vision of industry, art and design. They are playful, human and profound all at once. The same...

April 25, 2012

CFA Awarded NEA Grant to Process Ruth Page Dance Collection

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Chairman Rocco Landesman announced today that Chicago Film Archives is one of the 788 not-for-profit national, regional and state organizations nationwide to receive an NEA Art Works grant.  These Art Works grants support the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with diverse and excellent art, lifelong learning...

April 18, 2012

Orphans 8 Film Symposium

This past Saturday, I was lucky enough to attend the final day of the 8th Orphans Film Symposium. For those unfamiliar with this NYU biennial symposium, it is a “gathering of scholars, archivists, curators, and media artists devoted to saving, screening, and studying neglected moving images.” These neglected moving images are often referred to as “orphan films,” which encompass films...