Saturday, October 11, 6:00 p.m. | While a significant number of the screenings we’ve presented across the three Celluloid Now editions to date have not followed a specific theme, throughlines often assert themselves, connecting films made under totally different circumstances with totally different aims. For the films in this program, the bonding agent is a unique, spectral strangeness tethered to the acts of shooting and projecting film. In a series of lengthy, observational takes, Ayanna Dozier’s Nightwalker distills its titular occupation to the very act in its name, constantly moving with its main character as she hustles ever-forward through the night. Adam Paradis’s Damage Control slices, dices, scrambles, and repeats a ten second sequence originally used in the hit animated television program Rocky and His Friends, transforming moose and squirrel alike into flicker film icons. Perhaps the most perverted object in all of Celluloid Now this year, Christine Lucy Latimer’s Assets flagrantly discards celluloid’s indexicality in favor of a kitschy simulation, a visual stack of hundreds of chintzy, digital “film” filters placed on top of one another, which Latimer prints to 16mm Ektachrome reversal stock and processes herself in a triumphant moment of reification for film. Beginning with a slow, gliding shot across a field, Johann Lurf and Christina Jauernik’s Revolving Rounds travels forward with steady purpose, moving through strange agricultural spaces, observing strange projection equipment, taking a few metaphysical twists and turns, and getting enmeshed in what appears to be the silver halides in the universe’s film emulsion.
Program
Assets (Christine Lucy Latimer, 2025, 2 min.) - 16mm
Nightwalker (Ayanna Dozier, 2022, 7 min.) - 16mm
Limited Sight Distance (Curt Heiner, 2016, 5 min.) - 16mm
Damage Control (Bullwinkle film) (Adam Paradis, 2010, 4 min.) - 16mm
Flowers for an Old Shrine (Long Pham, 2025, 6 min.) - 16mm
The Last Train (Dianna Barrie & Richard Tuohy, 2016, 12 min.) - 16mm
Zero Length Spring (Ross Meckfessel, 2021, 16 min.) - 16mm
Revolving Rounds (Johann Lurf & Christina Jauernik, 2024, 11 min.) - 35mm
Celluloid Now | October 10–12, 2025
The Chicago Film Society (CFS) is proud to welcome you to the 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. Join CFS at the Gene Siskel Film Center for a special, jumbo-sized program of 35mm shorts, featuring brand new prints and other surprises! Learn more at celluloidnow.org. Synopses courtesy of Chicago Film Society.
The Film Center is ADA accessible. This presentation will be projected without open captions. The theater is hearing-loop equipped. For accessibility requests, please email filmcenter@saic.edu