In a screening room at the “South Side Home Movie Project” exhibit at the Logan Center for the Arts on the University of Chicago campus, images of 20th-century South Side families flash across a screen.
Fathers hold a diaper-changing contest. A group of teens makes a DIY zombie flick. A toddler rides a toy rocking horse on Christmas morning.
The exhibit represents two decades of work by Jacqueline Stewart, professor of cinema and media studies at U Chicago, to collect home movies from South Side families. Through her “South Side Home Movie Project,” she has gathered more than 1,200 films dating back to the 1930s. The films are like mini time capsules, depicting families, community events and life on the South Side going back nearly 100 years.
The South Side Home Movie Project holds more than 1,200 reels of 16mm, 8mm, and Super-8mm footage shot by South Siders spanning from the 1930s to the 1980s.
Candace Dane Chambers/Sun-Times
Her interest in home movies started in 1999 at a film conference called the Orphan Film Symposium, where the movies screened as part of a larger focus on nontheatrical films.
“As a film scholar, I had not formally learned about home movies or taught them in my classes, yet it was a practice of filmmaking that just seemed really interesting to me,” Stewart said. “It was really intimate and part of everyday life across the 20th century for so many families and communities.”
Stewart, who was born and raised in Hyde Park, wondered about home movies in her community. The films are unique, because Stewart only collects home movies shot on actual film: 8mm, 16mm and super 8mm. Her project not only focuses on screening home movies but also the restoration and digitalization of old film reels.
In the exhibit, the reels of film and the old-school cameras are as much of a draw as the movies. The cameras used to shoot the films, some of which are nearly 100-year-old Kodaks, are on display. All the films in the collection were shot before smartphones or even camcorders had been invented.
“We’ve noticed that when we actually project one of the films on an 8mm or Super 8mm projector, young people are sometimes looking at the projector more than they’re looking at the actual film, because it’s such a novelty,” Stewart said.
Featured filmmaker Lynette Frazier (far right), 92, points out her footage to her family at the South Side Home Movie Project exhibition in the Logan Center Gallery located at 915 E. 60th St.
Candace Dane Chambers/Sun-Times
The cameras used to shoot the collection’s home movies only shot video — not audio. That means the films are mostly silent. The Home Movie Project partnered with local DJs and musicians, such as Jamila Woods and Chicago poet laureate Avery R. Young, to score the films. On a recent visit, sounds of a house-infused instrumental version of the Jackson 5 hit “I Want You Back” filled the exhibit space as images of a family party were projected on a wall.
The gallery space is painted in bright colors, inspired by Chicago artist and architect Amanda Williams’ project “Color(ed) Theory,” which incorporated shades from her life on the South Side. The furniture in the gallery, bearing the same color schemes, was donated by local furniture-maker and conceptual artist Norman Teague. Stewart said these elements, from a pair of well-known Black artists, provide a sense of comfort, elegance and connection to Black design history.
Rashieda Witter, who moved to Chicago eight months ago and was visiting the exhibition, said the project is both essential and timely.
“It’s beautiful. It’s absolutely stunning. I’ve experienced so much nostalgia,” Witter said. “We’re living in a time that feels more heightened under this current administration, where Black history and narratives are under attack, and there are very real attempts to erase and silence Black people’s contributions to this country. I feel like home movies give us agency to tell and preserve our own stories.”
Asked which video in the exhibit has stood out, Witter pointed to a film from a couple who documented their daughters growing up.
“It’s just beautiful to see the fashion of the time,” Witter said. “They were some fly little kids, so that one definitely caught my attention.”
Most people don’t have 8mm projectors, so in many cases these films are being seen for the first time in a very long time — and in some cases for the first time ever.
Candace Dane Chambers/Sun-Times
In many ways, viewing the films feels like staring into the past. The people, the fashion, the toys, the cars — everything on film is from a different period, ranging from the 1930s to the 1980s. Stewart said they invite families to watch the films before putting them on display for the public, and the reactions are priceless. Keep in mind: Most people don’t have 8mm projectors, so in many cases these films are being seen for the first time in a very long time — and in some cases for the first time ever.
“When you show somebody, for the first time in decades, footage of their mother holding them as a baby, these are really touching scenes,” Stewart said.
And Stewart knows firsthand how it feels to see family members in a decades-old film.
“I was surprised to learn that my own uncle, Charles Merrifield, made home movies. I didn’t know that when I started the project,” she said. “I was able to see footage of my own family: of my cousins when they were younger and my mom when she’s 16 years old, doing the Watusi. It was really incredible.”
Mike Davis is a theater reporter who covers stages across Chicago.