Screening 35mm & 16mm film prints from studio vaults, film archives, and private collections.
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Filth and Freedom: Selections from the Vinegar Syndrome Film Archive
Sunday, March 15 at 11:30 AM – Music Box Theatre – 3733 N Southport Ave
Tickets: $11 at the door or purchase in advance
FILTH AND FREEDOM: SELECTIONS FROM THE VINEGAR SYNDROME FILM ARCHIVE
In the late aughts, young Chicagoan and Odd Obsession video counter clerk Joe Rubin began amassing a huge collection of vintage adult films on 16mm and 35mm and presenting series of rare film prints at Doc Films, including “American Regional Horror,” “The Golden Age of American Sexploitation: Forgotten Works from the Sexual Underground”, and “Cinevangelism: Evangelical Films from the ’70s and ’80s” (co-programmed with CFS cofounder Becca Hall). By 2012, Rubin and Ryan Emerson had founded Vinegar Syndrome, a genre film distribution company named for the term archivists and film collectors use to describe the (not remotely fun) chemical decomposition of acetate film base. Today, in addition to their many Blu-ray releases, Vinegar Syndrome has amassed an archive of close to 100,000 individual reels of film, spanning nearly every format and film gauge imaginable. It is the largest genre film-focused archive in the world and one of the largest non-institutional film archives in the United States. For this show, Joe Rubin and Vinegar Syndrome archivist Oscar Becher will join us to discuss the conservation and preservation work they do and to showcase selections from the Vinegar Syndrome Film Archive, including 16mm and 35mm shorts, trailers, and other demented oddities which haven’t seen the light of a projector in decades. (JA)
Approx 90 min • 16mm and 35mm from the Vinegar Syndrome Film ArchiveThis program is for adults only!
NEXT UP: QUICK BILLY on Wednesday, March 18 at Constellation
Upcoming screenings:
View all upcoming screenings & venue info →
Sun 3/8 at 7 PM @ Music Box
Battleship Potemkin • Advance Tickets
Sun 3/15 at 11:30 AM @ Music Box
Selections from the Vinegar Syndrome Film Archive • Advance Tickets
Wed 3/18 at 8 PM @ Constellation
Quick Billy • Advance Tickets
Sun 3/29 at 6 PM @ Film Center
Ah Ying • Advance Tickets
Mon 4/6 at 6:30 PM @ Music Box
Reds • Advance Tickets
Sat 4/18 at 11:30 AM @ Music Box
Real Life • Advance Tickets
Sun 4/26 at 6 PM @ Film Center
Henry Fool • Advance Tickets
☆ Pre-Code Picture Party! ☆
Fri 5/1 at 7 PM @ Logan Center
Horse Feathers
Fri 5/1 at 9 PM @ Logan Center
Ladies Must Love
Sat 5/2 at 3 PM @ Logan Center
The Letter
Sat 5/2 at 5 PM @ Logan Center
The Wiser Sex
Sat 5/2 at 8 PM @ Logan Center
Wild Boys of the Road
Sun 5/3 at 1 PM @ Logan Center
His Wife’s Lover
Sun 5/3 at 3 PM @ Logan Center
Caravan
Sun 5/3 at 6 PM @ Logan Center
Anybody’s Woman
Sat 5/16 at 11:30 AM @ Music Box
Salomé
Mon 5/25 at 7 PM @ Music Box
Beavis and Butt-Head Do America
Sun 5/31 at 6 PM @ Film Center
Fly Away Home

The Chicago Film Society works to promote the exhibition of analog film prints, to preserve the equipment and skills used to create and exhibit them, and to encourage an approach to film history that positions cinema as part of the broader history of technology and society.
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