Celebrating 25 years by looking toward the future of the moving image.
In Fall 2026, Block Cinema marks its twenty-fifth anniversary. Founded in 2001 as a student-led film society, Block Cinema has evolved into one of the Midwest's most distinctive university cinema programs, advancing teaching, learning, research, and public engagement through the moving image.
Today, Block Cinema is more than a screening venue. Through public programs, original research, film preservation initiatives, artist collaborations, and student-centered learning opportunities, it serves as a gathering place for the study, presentation, and exploration of cinema in all its forms.
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. Organized around several core areas of activity, the anniversary year highlights Block Cinema's commitment to research and discovery, innovative forms of cinematic experience, and the next generation of students, artists, and audiences.
Discover Hidden Histories
Explore rediscovered films, archival research, and preservation projects that are expanding our understanding of cinema's past.
Block Cinema has long served as a site for scholarship and discovery. Through archival research, partnerships with libraries and collections, and collaborations with artists, scholars, and preservationists, the cinema helps bring overlooked and underrecognized moving-image histories into public view.
Anniversary programs will feature rediscovered films, conversations with historians and archivists, and presentations that illuminate how new research continues to reshape our understanding of film history. These programs build upon Block Cinema's growing role in film preservation, digitization, and the recovery of works that might otherwise remain unseen.
September 24, 2026: IRMA VEP (1996) in 35mm
Block Cinema launches its 25th-anniversary season with a 35mm screening of Olivier Assayas’s Irma Vep (1996), the film that inaugurated the program in September 2001.
October 8, 2026: THE LONG DAY CLOSES in 35mm with guest Nick Davis
Terence Davies’s deeply personal portrait of a young boy’s transformative love of cinema screened in 35mm with Northwestern film scholar Nick Davis, in partnership with the Chicago International Film Festival.
November 5, 2026: Listening to Chicago: Denis Mitchell and Studs Terkel
A rare screening of Denis Mitchell’s once-suppressed 1961 documentary portrait of Chicago explored its influence on Studs Terkel and their shared commitment to recording the voices of everyday people.
Experience Expanded Cinema
Experience performances, outdoor projections, and cinematic events that rethink the relationship between audience, image, and place.
Cinema has never been a fixed medium. Throughout its history, artists have continually expanded the possibilities of projection, performance, sound, and audience participation.
Projecting the Future will present a series of events that explore cinema as a live and communal art form. Programs will include performances by artists working at the intersection of film and music, screenings that transform the relationship between audience and screen, and outdoor projections that bring moving images into new public spaces across campus. Together, these events celebrate the enduring power of cinema to create shared experiences and foster meaningful exchange.
October 9, 2026: ELEVEN P.M. (1928) in 35mm with live score by Damon Locks
Richard D. Maurice’s surrealist silent feature Eleven P.M. (1928) screened in a restored 35mm print with live accompaniment by Chicago artist and musician Damon Locks, presented in partnership with International Anthem.
October 14, 2026: LES VAMPIRES (1916) w/ live score by Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl & Macie Stewart
Louis Feuillade’s iconic silent serial Les Vampires came to life in 16mm with an improvisational score performed by Chicago musicians Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, and Macie Stewart, presented in partnership with International Anthem.
Imagine the Future of Cinema
Discover how students are helping shape the future of Block Cinema through new opportunities for programming, research, and public engagement.
The anniversary year also looks forward by investing in the next generation of programmers, scholars, filmmakers, and audiences. Reconnecting with its roots in the student-led Film and Projection Society, The Block will launch a new undergraduate film programming initiative that offers Northwestern students hands-on experience in programming, research, and public engagement. Working alongside Block Cinema staff, students will help shape future programs while developing skills in curation, collaboration, and critical inquiry.
Interview Series: The Film that Changed my Life.
As part of Block Cinema's 25th anniversary, we invite filmmakers, artists, scholars, alumni, students, and audience members to reflect on a deceptively simple question: What film changed your life?. The answers may come from a celebrated classic, an obscure documentary, a childhood favorite, or a chance encounter with a film seen at exactly the right moment.
This anniversary initiative explores the many ways cinema shapes how we see ourselves and the world around us. Across disciplines, professions, and biographies, films have inspired careers, sparked research, deepened understanding, challenged assumptions, and opened new ways of thinking.
By sharing these stories, participants help illuminate cinema's enduring capacity to connect people, generate ideas, and transform our lives.