Screening 35mm & 16mm film prints from studio vaults, film archives, and private collections.

  • 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 Archive

    This program is for adults only!

    NEXT UP: QUICK BILLY on Wednesday, March 18 at Constellation

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Upcoming screenings:

View all upcoming screenings & venue info

Sun 3/8 at 7 PM @ Music Box
Battleship PotemkinAdvance Tickets

Sun 3/15 at 11:30 AM @ Music Box
Selections from the Vinegar Syndrome Film ArchiveAdvance Tickets

Wed 3/18 at 8 PM @ Constellation
Quick BillyAdvance Tickets

Sun 3/29 at 6 PM @ Film Center
Ah YingAdvance Tickets

Mon 4/6 at 6:30 PM @ Music Box
RedsAdvance Tickets

Sat 4/18 at 11:30 AM @ Music Box
Real LifeAdvance Tickets

Sun 4/26 at 6 PM @ Film Center
Henry FoolAdvance 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

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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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