Block Cinema is dedicated to encounter, exchange, and learning through the art of the moving image.
Learn More about the Block Cinema program.
Always free and open to all
Upcoming Screenings
Mar137 PM
First Person Plural: New and Rediscovered Trans Documentary Shorts with filmmaker Connor O’Keefe
Two recent short films by documentary filmmaker Connor O’Keefe bookend three newly digitized portrait films from the 1960s and 70s, each offering an intimate approach to first-person testimony.
Mar147 PM
DESIRE LINES (2024) and BROS BEFORE (2022) with Jules Rosskam and Henry Hanson in person
The Trans Portraiture film series closes with two recent films that offer joyful explorations of transmasculine desire and identity through acts of archival recovery and erotic imagination.
Apr37 PM
THE WAITING ROOM (1973) with guest Karen Sperling (OFFSITE)
Unseen for over 50 years, Karen Sperling’s mesmerizing second feature film, THE WAITING ROOM (1973), makes its return to the screen in a new digital transfer commissioned by Block Cinema from the best surviving elements. This historic screening, held off-site at Northwestern University’s Abbott Hall in downtown Chicago, will be followed by an in-person conversation with Sperling.
"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
Explore Block Cinema's Press Coverage
