Join CFA and Honey Pot Performance on Sat 11/8 for a free screening of Lord Thing (1969, DeWitt Beall). The screening will be followed by conversation around the histories of the North Lawndale neighborhood, violence mitigation, and self-transformation through literature and the arts. Details:

Jim Edgar, who served as governor of Illinois from 1991 to 1999, died this past weekend. This clip from a Super 8 reel in the Bill Stamets Collection shows Gov. Edgar holding a soccer ball and speaking to the press at Soldier Field ahead of the 1994 FIFA World Cup.

New York, see THE MURDER OF FRED HAMPTON in a 35mm print from our collections tonight at 6:15pm and 9/21 at 7pm:

This project would not have been possible without the support of @clirnews.bsky.social!

After a year of work, we've finished digitizing and cataloging hundreds of reels shot by photojournalist Bill Stamets, who described his subjects as "a miscellany of civic occasions where Americans make sense of power." You can watch them all our website for free.

Happy birthday to artist-reporter Franklin McMahon, born this day in 1921! His detailed documentary drawings and audio recordings are a rich record of politics and society in the 1960s, '70s and '80s.

People dancing in Grant Park at the sixth annual Taste of Chicago in July 1985 🕺🏽 From a reel of Super 8 film in the Bill Stamets Collection.

On September 4, 1966, activist Robert Lucas led a march from Chicago's North Lawndale neighborhood into the suburb of Cicero to protest housing segregation. White residents of Cicero responded with vitriolic jeers as the police struggled to prevent a riot.

"Sneeze," a sample pitch made by Goldsholl Associates for the Kimberly-Clark Corporation's Kleenex product. From CFA's Mort and Millie Goldsholl Collection.

A clown and a dog named Jess on a float at the Calumet City Labor Day Parade, 1980.

The Chicago Jazz Festival is a Labor Day Weekend tradition! Here's a reel of Super 8 footage shot by Bill Stamets at the 1984 Chicago Kool Jazz Festival in Grant Park and at the 25th Annual International Folk Fair.

The 1975-‘76 Chicago Blackhawks face off against a gaggle of Sesame Street Muppets in this 16mm film from the Koza Collection. A dry commentator narrates the action, repeatedly attributing Grover’s puck handling skills to Oscar the Grouch. More: collections.chicagofilmarchives.org/Detail/objec...

Happy birthday to Norm Bruns, who grew up in Palatine, Illinois and created an extraordinary group of 8mm and Super 8 films in the early 1980s. Here's his Super 8 film "The Unusual Book" (circa 1981) featuring his friend Anne Flanagan:

A silent 1959 newsreel featuring Illinois Institute of Technology grad student Louis Richards riding a power scooter called a "Skeeter" around the IIT campus. It was assembled from rollerskate wheels and powered by a model airplane engine to dramatize Richards' thesis on "minimal transportation."

Chicago Public Schools students go back to class on Monday! The 1970 short film "Metro!!! The School Without Walls," preserved by CFA in 2015, follows a group of students at the Chicago Public High School for Metropolitan Studies and their teachers as they explore the city.

You can listen to many hours of interviews with some of Chicago's early film pioneers in our Wm. Grisham Collection! Also featuring docs about Beverly Bayne (prolific silent film actress for Essanay) & Luther J. Pollard (founder of Ebony Studios): collections.chicagofilmarchives.org/Detail/colle...

Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood held its 53rd(!) annual Fiesta del Sol last weekend! Here are scenes from the 1988 iteration, excerpted from a silent 16mm reel in our Susan Dobinsky Collection. Watch the whole film here: collections.chicagofilmarchives.org/Detail/objec...

The historic Bud Bud Billiken Parade is happening this Saturday in Bronzeville! This footage from the 1983 parade is from a reel of 16mm film made by Bill Stamets. Keep an eye out for Mayor Harold Washington and Jesús “Chuy” García.

We're so proud that our project to preserve the Wilding Pictures film "The New World of Stainless Steel" (1960) is in such great company!

"Joe Cutting Tree" (circa 1980). This film was shot on 8mm by JoAnn Elam, and depicts her husband Joe.

Newly digitized 16mm outtakes from DeWitt Beall's portrait of the Conservative Vice Lords, LORD THING (1970), showing young people dancing, kissing, and hanging out.

Did you know that CFA preserves over 200 wrestling matches from the 1950s in our Russ & Sylvia Davis Collection? In this excerpt, reigning champ June Byers faces Penny Banner at the Chicago International Amphitheatre on August 26th, 1955.

Cutting grass with a scythe in the village of Sredska, Prizren, Kosovo (then part of Serbia), circa 1971. From a Super 8 home movie in the Nogulich Collection featuring members of the Mandusich family of Skokie, Illinois visiting extended family.

Disco Demolition Night was 46 years ago today. Of course, Bill Stamets was there to capture the absurd, hate-filled spectacle with his Super-8 camera; in 2023, NFPF awarded CFA a grant to photochemically preserve ROCK SOX DISCO SUX to 16mm film: collections.chicagofilmarchives.org/Detail/objec...

Last year CFA received funding from the National Film Preservation Foundation to photochemically preserve five films made by midwestern amateur filmmakers and six films by Chicago independent filmmaker JoAnn Elam. Today the final preservation elements — 38 reels total — arrived from Colorlab!

Horsing around in the summertime, Iola, Wisconsin, circa 1948. 📽️ Excerpt from a reel of 8mm home movies in the Cooper Family Collection.

Save the date for Chicago Home Movie Day 2025! (It'll be November 1 at the Chicago History Museum.)

Frenetically shot at Fourth of July gathering in 1977, "7/4/77" showcases JoAnn Elam’s striking ability to use 8mm to capture intimate details and create a unique visual cadence. CFA is close to completing the photochemical preservation of this and five other films by JoAnn Elam!

Fragment of a 16mm advertising spot made circa 1977 promoting a renaissance faire near Chicago. The faire is likely King Richard's Faire (later known as the Bristol Renaissance Faire) in Bristol, Wisconsin. 📽️ From the Robert Flaxman Collection

The opening of Elgin, Illinois-based travelogue filmmaker Julian Gromer's "Canada Coast to Coast!" 🇨🇦

A moment from a 1974 "kiss-in" demonstration for gay rights at Chicago's Daley Plaza. Excerpt from a 16mm reel shot by Tom Palazzolo, labeled "Gay Kiss-In At The Picasso"

Scenes from Chicago’s 15th Annual Gay & Lesbian Pride Parade in June 1984. 📽️From a loosely assembled reel of Super 8 film in the Bill Stamets Collection.

Come see us this weekend!

Teenagers hanging out in a Chicago basement, circa 1969. 📽️ Excerpt from an 8mm reel in the Nogulich Family Collection.

We'll be hosting a casual open house this Sunday, June 29! If you're in Chicago, drop by and see us. Details here: www.chicagofilmarchives.org/calendar/eve...

Yep that's nitrate!

Super 8 footage from circa 2006 documenting a protest in Chicago's Grant Park against H.R. 4437, the Border Protection, Anti-terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005.

Anti-war activist and Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic makes a speech at a protest on the campus of the University of Chicago in May 1979.

Gail Nakamura's high school graduation, circa 1963, from a reel of 8mm home movies shot by her uncle Frank Miyamoto. They lived on N Hampden Court in Chicago, near Lincoln Park. Anyone recognize this high school?

A moment from a 1974 "kiss-in" demonstration for gay rights at Chicago's Daley Plaza. Excerpt from a 16mm reel shot by Tom Palazzolo, labeled "Gay Kiss-In At The Picasso"

16mm footage of the December 1998 implosion of the Lakefront Properties, a public housing high rise, and the crowd that gathered to view (and protest) the demolition. The buildings were located in Chicago's Oakwood neighborhood, near the lakefront at 42nd St.

Excerpt from a 1953 episode of the "Old American Barn Dance" show, taped in Chicago at Kling Studios, featuring host Bill Bailey and a performance by the DeZurik Sisters. From a 35mm print in CFA's Peter A. Nikulin Collection.

Dog actor Benjean and animal trainer Frank Inn celebrate the release of "For the Love of Benji" (1977, Joe Camp) at Chicago's Playboy Club. Excerpt from a reel of unedited 16mm news footage in CFA's Frank Koza Collection.

Decoration Day, circa 1941. Excerpt from a reel of 16mm home movies labeled "1941 - 1943" from the Byron Stevens Films series in CFA's John Dame Collection, shot in Illinois and Wisconsin.

"America's In Real Trouble" (1967, Tom Palazzolo, 16mm)

Excerpt from "1958: Susan’s Prom - Dinner Party" This 16mm reel, from CFA's Marquis Ritchey Cring Collection, was likely shot at the prom for Brentwood High School in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri.

Gwendolyn Brooks, Poet Laureate of Illinois, reads poems at a public event in Chicago in the 1980s. Excerpted from a reel of loosely assembled Super 8 footage shot by Bill Stamets, labeled "Dangerous Chemicals - Daley - Art Jones - Gwendolyn Brooks."

An excerpt from "Early Northbrook" featuring dancer Sybil Shearer (1912-2005) and shot by Helen Balfour Morrison (1901-1984). 🌱

So excited that "The Mermaid," created by Jean Sousa and Kioto Aoki for the 2020 CFA Media Mixer, will be part of this program in New York tonight!

Summertime means water bikes and comically large cigars. Right? "Water Bike" (16mm, ca. 1930s, Redlich Family Collection), home movie shot near Antioch, Illinois: collections.chicagofilmarchives.org/Detail/objec...