December 2022 Issue: Film 50 (Print Edition)

 Photo Finish

"I first met Liz Siegel shortly after I opened FLATFILEgalleries on Peoria Street in 2000. Her interest in photography has always been curious and acute, and her knowledge deep. It’s no wonder then that she has championed the creation of “A Field Guide to Photography and Media,” which opens at the Art Institute on November 19 and the accompanying book, “The Art Institute of Chicago Field Guide to Photography and Media,” edited by Antawan I. Byrd and Elizabeth Siegel with Carl Fuldner, which will follow in early 2023." (Susan Aurinko)

What Cuts At My Soul

"Back in those days, he struck me as aloof, but decades later, during our interviews for this project in the clubroom of the apartment building where he lived in Milwaukee with his wife Shirley, he freely admitted that he was introverted by nature. This truth about Elder was in direct contradiction to his leadership role as a Black student activist at Chicago’s Tilden High School from 1966 to 1969 and immediately after that as a member of the Black Panther Party." (Shawn Shifflet)

Film Leaders of the Moment

"A few words by James Baldwin have been in the air since summer: 'Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but, most of all, endurance.' The Music Box Theatre on Southport has endured for going on ninety-four years. I'm talking with Bill Schopf, the president and founder of Music Box Films since 2007, who's owned the Music Box Theatre building since 1986 and the theatrical business since 2004. Also in the conversation are Lisa Holmes (head of home entertainment at Music Box Films since 2012), Brian Andreotti (head of acquisitions, and with Music Box Films since 2007 and Music Box Theatre since 1995) and Ryan Oestreich (general manager, Music Box Theatre since 2015)." (Ray Pride)

Film 50 2022

"So many scenes! Behind the scenes of what constitutes 'film'—industry and community, in Chicago and the Midwest—is circle upon circle, an ecstasy of Venn diagrams, a steady pulse of rings shaped by raindrops touching the surface of the bodies of water (and humanity) that bound and bind us, shapes that eddy outward, and overlap, and refresh this great lake of effort, inspiration and talent. Within these fifty entries, whittled down from several hundred possibilities, comprising seventy-plus players in the Midwest who work in film, these gifted people are their own Venn diagram, participating in more circles than you would ever expect, if you were unfamiliar with the wondrous industry of Chicago film workers." (Ray Pride)

Arts & Culture

Reviews

It's not all Christmas out there, not by a long shot

Comics

"Let the Dead Walk," a new graphic story by Anya Davidson

Poetry

"arrhythmia," a new poem from Rachel DeWoskin