The Picture Restart series: 16mm Films from the Picture Start Collection
We are excited to announce that on Saturday, January 18th, Chicago Filmmakers will be launching PICTURE RESTART, an exciting monthly series of independent films on 16mm in the historic Firehouse Cinema, 1326 W Hollywood Ave, Chicago, IL 60660
Photo Credit: Julian Thomas
Upcoming Screenings in the series
January 18, 2025 at 6pm - “HER EXPANSIVE SELF”
February 15, 2025 at 6pm - “SURFACE TENSIONS”
March 25, 2025 at 6pm - “ANIMATED BREAKDOWNS”
Future Dates to Be Announced
Ben Creech - Picture Restart Series Curator
Ben Creech is an experimental human, whose work often abandons discipline in hopes of capturing the movement of thought. Originally from Louisville, now in Chicago, their films have a tendency to explore difference and repetition, tracing the lines that connect the particular to the infinite. They’re also interested in forms of ricochet, where the past repeats itself and the image returns, often engaged as sampling. Ben also designs and produces esoteric cinephile merch, is finishing work on a study of Louisville born amateur auteur William Girdler, and digging through attics and trenches in search of lost films.
It all started when…
Over 40 years ago, an enterprising Ron Epple founded the Picture Start Distribution Project in Champaign, Illinois, operating as a hub and repository for independent and underground filmmakers. However, Picture Start struggled to weather the shift to video and transferred their collection into Chicago Filmmakers’ care a few years before Epple’s death in 1993. A new catalog was published in an attempt to keep the films in circulation, but rentals were few, so the collection went into hibernation, slumbering for decades.
The collection has proven an indispensable source of knowledge and research for scholars and programmers who have gone through the collection in search of specific titles. The now widely celebrated Eyeworks Animation Series’ first programs were partly drawn from research conducted within the Picture Start Collection.
Chicago Filmmakers is thrilled that Ben Creech, the Head Projectionist at the Block Cinema, has taken an interest in the collection and is arduously working to identify and repair 16mm films that might still be projectable for the public. Ben is curating programs that include some of the most important, historic, unique, and interesting works from the over 600 titles in the Picture Start Collection, many of which haven’t been seen by an audience in decades. Together with Chicago Filmmakers, Ben is hoping to reintroduce these cinematic treasures to new audiences who will appreciate the opportunity to see films on celluloid, including the early films of filmmakers who went on to longtime careers in the film industry and some who never went on to make another film.
