8:00pm.

CALIGARI'S CURE

Directed by Tom Palazzolo • 1982

Since the 1960s, Tom Palazzolo has pursued a relentless and idiosyncratic career, earning the honorific "Chicago's filmmaker laureate" from no less than Roger Ebert. Best known for the string of hilarious and keenly observed short documentaries he made throughout the 1970s, Palazzolo's most famous works shine a light on the diverse range of strange customs, personalities, cranks, and eccentrics endemic to Chicagoland. Palazzolo’s first feature looks, at least on the surface, like a break from his earlier, cinéma vérité-leaning films: a semi-autobiographical account of his own St. Louis childhood staged inside of a spoof of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and inspired by the new wave of performance artists working in Chicago at the start of the 1980s. But while the thrift-store expressionist art direction and Midwestern-Weimar trappings may be a novelty, there's no mistaking Caligari's Cure for anything but pure Palazzolo, an affectionately prankish send-up of the very idea of filmmaking starring a number of familiar faces from across Chicago's art and film scenes, including performance artist Carmela Rago, filmmaker Heather McAdams, and Visionary Film author P. Adams Sitney. CFS is thrilled to partner with our friends at Chicago Film Archives to present the world premiere of their brand-new 16mm preservation of Caligari's Cure, here to confuse and delight a new generation of Chicago cinephiles. Preserved by Chicago Film Archives through the National Film Preservation Foundation’s Avant-Garde Masters Grant program and The Film Foundation. Funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. (CW)

66 min • 16mm from Chicago Film Archives

Preceded by: "Venus and Adonis" (Tom Palazzolo, 1966) – 19 min – 16mm from Chicago Film Archives

Introduction and post-screening discussion with Tom Palazzolo