From the “Chicago-Scope: The Films of Tom Palazzolo, 1967–1976” catalogue: “One of Tom Palazzolo’s first films, this inspired in part by René Clair’s 1924 film starring Francis Picabia, Entr’acte. O’s use of double exposure, free association and improvisation, chiaroscuro, and a nonsensical “musique concrète” soundtrack pay homage to these masters of Dada and Surrealism.” Continue reading
Archival videos shine light on everyday human qualities. Here are two short ones from Media Burn that portray the kind of couples we all know—they’ve been together forever. They know the good things in life. The first is by Maxi Cohen in 1991 on the Jersey shore where her family lived. They appeared on Episode 304 of The 90’s. The second couple, the Falkenburgs, lived in a Chicago seniors’ apartment building a few blocks from Wrigley Field. Footage is taken … Continue reading
This Sunday, February 9th, would be the 106th birthday of one of sports, Chicago’s and our personal heroes, Bill Veeck (1914-1986). The Media Burn Archive has close to 300 videos about and with the baseball Hall of Famer who owned baseball teams in Milwaukee, Cleveland, St. Louis and Chicago (twice). But his life and wisdom went far beyond sports. He wrote five books, had his own radio and TV shows for 40 years and did thousands of speaking engagements. Like many … Continue reading
In the 1950’s white Americans were fleeing inner cities, spurred on by a legal but unscrupulous real estate technique known as blockbusting. In places such as the Mount Airy neighborhoods in Philadelphia, PA, real estate companies would identify a majority white neighborhood and purposely sell a house to an African American. The agents would then blanket the neighborhood with flyers or even make phone calls to white homeowners alerting them to the ‘changing’ nature of the neighborhood, encouraging them to sell immediately before house prices dropped. The result of this was panic selling. Entire neighborhoods could be flipped in less than a month, creating racial distrust while lining the pockets of real estate agents and companies. Neighbor Ladies shares the stories and strategies of community activists and regular people who decided to organize and fight back against the system. Continue reading
42 years ago Marty and Frank Kapugi celebrated their 50th anniversary of playing tamburica music in the United States. This 25-minute documentary created by Mirko Popadic and Gordana Trbuhovich in 1979, highlights the two days of festivities with interviews, speeches and fantastic music.
The power of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life—his clarion oratory skill, his burning prophetic demand for racial and economic justice—tremors through the consciousness of our society today. Yet the urgency of his message and radical call to action, it could be said, proved not just from the transformative clarity of his vision but in the way this vision defied the proximity of death’s shadow. “Each morning as I brush my teeth and wash my face,” King would say, according … Continue reading
Hanging out at home for the holidays? Why not rummage around in the attic or basement to find your old video tapes and bring them to Home Video Day! Attendees are invited to bring a tape to be projected for the audience, or to simply show up and enjoy what’s on the screen. Videos will run the gamut from birthdays, parties, pageants, weddings, sports, movie re-enactments, to who knows what! We invite you to laugh and cry at the touching … Continue reading
Dear friend, We’re writing to you from our fourth-floor office in River West, looking out over a mostly empty city on this dreary gray day. It’s quiet except for the occasional Metra commuter train zipping by, the bells of St. John Cantius, and the clicking of computer keys. That faint tapping is the only evidence of the work we do every day at Media Burn. This isn’t just a “job” to us. We’re part of a small family here at … Continue reading