The Chicago Film Society Presents: Celluloid Now Program 1 — Light & Noise
@ Constellation
3111 N Western Ave, Chicago, IL 60618
Opening Thursday, October 9th, at 8PM
Tickets: $15 at the door or in advance
The Chicago Film Society is pleased to bring you a third edition of Celluloid Now: four days of screenings, workshops, and other events showcasing the work of analog filmmakers and artists, alongside archival rediscoveries and restorations.
Celluloid Now 2025 will take place October 9 – 12.
This program begins with its namesake film, the last completed by the dearly missed Tomonari Nishikawa. Its title, Light, Noise, Smoke, and Light, Noise, Smoke, elegantly describes the forms each of the film’s Super 16 image takes as it moves through the projector. First: the light which projects towards the screen as the film runs through the projector gate. Second: the noise which the projector’s sound reader translates from the variance in opacity between bursts of sparks and the night’s sky. Third: smoke, open to interpretation but ideally not something related to the projector. Since time immemorial, small gauge film artists like those in this program have made do with a paucity of resources by finding novel, unexpected, and exciting ways to work with film stock, cameras, and projectors. In this program, you’ll find a poetic interpolation of the instructions printed on the side of a darkroom thermometer, a somnambulist tour through the modern inferno of digital screen life in sumptuous 16mm, two brand new 16mm preservation prints of work by Chicago experimental filmmaker and postal worker JoAnn Elam, and a multi-projector performance by arc, catching a wave on the visible spectrum.
Light, Noise, Smoke, and Light, Noise, Smoke (2023, Tomonari Nishikawa, 6 min.) — 16mm
Estuary (2021, Ross Meckfessel, 12 min.) — 16mm
Skeyesee (2024, Jimmy Schaus, 3 min.) — 16mm
Cycladic Thermometer (2017/2023, Kate Dollenmayer, 8 min.) — 16mm
Genesis 38:14-15 (2025, Ayanna Dozier, 5 min.) — 16mm
Doing It For Daddy (2025, Ayanna Dozier, 3 min.) — 16mm
Marooned (2024, Ben Kappitt, 3 min.) — Super 8
the circle game (2025, Blanca García & James Devine, 3 min.) — Super 8
A Home of Clouds and Trees no. 2 (Returning Cloud) (2025, Michael Metzger, 3 min.) — Super 8
A Country Mile (circa 1973, JoAnn Elam, 3 min.) — 16mm
[Garden & Joe] (circa 1980, JoAnn Elam, 3 min.) — 16mm
Holographic Will (2023, Mike Stoltz, 6 min.) — 16mm
INCHOATRACIES OR EVERYTHING IS AS IT GOES IN ANTEROGRADE (2024, Zack Parrinella, 2 min.) — 16mm
infinite column (2022–2025, arc, 12 min.) — artist-operated 2x16mm
Runtime: Approx. 90 minutes with an intermission.
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Tags: 16mm, Ayanna Dozier, Ben Kappitt, Blanca Garcia, Celluloid Now, Celluloid Now Program 1 — Light & Noise, CFS, Chicago Film Society, Constellation, film, James Devine, Jimmy Schaus, JoAnn Elam, Kate Dollenmayer, Mike Stoltz, North Center, Returning Cloud, Ross Meckfessel, The Chicago Film Society Presents, Zack Parrinella
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