For the final project of their programming and distribution class at the School of the Art Institute last fall, video makers Sara Cough and Colin Palombi helped organize a screening of student work at Jinx Cafe in Wicker Park. They were counting on their 20 classmates showing up plus a handful of interested individuals; instead they drew a crowd of 60. “It was way too crowded,” says Palombi, who’s 22 and has just completed his final semester at SAIC. “People were smoking, and we had audio problems. It seemed like a disaster at first. About halfway through the program we fixed the audio. But it was still just way too crowded.”
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Encouraged by the fiasco, the pair decided to stage a series of four monthly screenings at the Ice Factory, an informal recording studio and event space on the near west side. They dubbed the series Ice Capades in honor of the venue, and solicited submissions with flyers and e-mail. “A lot of it is student work and work from filmmakers who’ve been around for a while,” says Cough, who’s 23 and graduated last fall. “Some was from random people we’d never heard of before.” Two regulars at the Inner Town Pub, where Cough works, submitted films.
“I think there’s always a place for more work to be shown,” says Patrick Friel, program director of Chicago Filmmakers, which has been showcasing local and experimental films for the past 30 years. “In the past five years there’s been increasing growth in what they call microcinema, which is organized in a very DIY, grassroots kind of way. It’s usually a couple of people doing it on their own without any organizational or institutional affiliation. Often it’s the doing of it that is as important for them as the fact that work is getting to be shown.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Yvette Marie Dostatni.
