Block Cinema is dedicated to encounter, exchange, and learning through the art of the moving image.
In Fall 2026, Block Cinema marks its twenty-fifth anniversary. To celebrate this milestone, The Block Museum of Art presents Projecting the Future: Block Cinema at 25, a year-long series of screenings, performances, conversations, and special initiatives throughout the 2026-2027 academic year that explore the evolving possibilities of the moving image.
Block Cinema at 25: IRMA VEP (1996) in 35mm
COLD HANDS (1991) - The Lost DIY Horror Films of Kip Hanks
Late writer-director-star Kip Hanks’s sole feature, lost for decades and revived by a strange twist of fate, is an uncanny shot-on-video story of resurrection.
ELEVEN P.M. (1928) in 35mm with live score by Damon Locks
Independently made by filmmaker Richard D. Maurice with an all-Black cast, this surreal, Detroit-set silent melodrama screens in 35mm with live score by sound collagist Damon Locks
LES VAMPIRES (1916) w/ live score by Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl & Macie Stewart
The Chicago experimental string trio provides an improvisational score to “Hypnotic Eyes,” the iconic sixth episode of Louis Feuillade’s silent crime serial, presented in 16mm.
Chicago Film Society Presents: DREAMS THAT MONEY CAN BUY with Karina Longworth
"We’re very conscious of the valuable role that university cinemas like ours can play in the ecosystem of non-theatrical film. We look for opportunities to support and showcase the work of distributors who are expanding access to adventurous cinema, archives that are preserving endangered cinematic legacies and scholars and filmmakers who are promoting a more inclusive film culture.
We try to act as a conduit between that international community of passionate cinema workers, and diverse local communities at Northwestern and beyond, who see cinema as a way to encounter the world and exchange ideas."
– Michael Metzger, Pick-Laudati Curator of Media Arts, Block Museum
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