The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University has received a $10,000 Creative Projects Grant from the Illinois Arts Council to commission four Chicago-area filmmakers to create new 16mm films exploring Lake Michigan. Titled Lake Effects: Shoreline Visions by Chicago Filmmakers, the project will provide artists with funding, film stock, and production services, culminating in a free public premiere on May 14, 2027, at Northwestern’s lakeside Kahn Pavilion.
The project is part of Projecting the Future: Block Cinema at 25, a year-long initiative marking the program’s twenty-fifth anniversary and exploring the evolving possibilities of the moving image. Lake Effects extends Block Cinema’s support for filmmakers into the production of new work, complementing its work in public screening, teaching, and film preservation.
Participating filmmakers Lua Borges, Charles Cadkin, Paige Taul, and Fernando Saldivia Yáñez will consider Lake Michigan as a physical, cultural, and psychological boundary. Their films will offer distinct perspectives on a landscape that shapes the region’s daily life and a resource that will remain critical to its future.
“One of the central goals of our 25th anniversary is inviting audiences to help us imagine the future of film. Lake Effects helps us achieve that goal by supporting local film artists who are innovating in the 16mm medium,” said Michael Metzger, Pick-Laudati Academic Curator for Cinema and Media Arts at The Block.
Each filmmaker will receive an artist’s fee and film stock, with Block Cinema covering film processing, scanning, and printing costs. This support gives artists resources to create new work in a medium that can be costly to produce and difficult to exhibit. The artists will retain their film prints following the premiere.
The four filmmakers bring different approaches to questions of place and belonging. Borges works with analog film to capture the fleeting experiences and interior life of the everyday. Cadkin’s practice explores neglected personal and local histories through ecology, topography, landscape, and the body. Taul uses experimental cinematography to examine assumptions about Black cultural expression and belonging. Saldivia Yáñez’s practice spans Puerto Williams, Chile, and Chicago, portraying communities amid environmental and social change.
Overseen by Metzger, with technical direction by Block Museum technician Ben Creech, Lake Effects builds on Block Cinema’s recent work supporting media artists and expanding access to analog filmmaking. That work includes the 2023 Climate Crisis + Media Arts awards and a series of free public analog filmmaking workshops initiated in 2024. Through eco-processing and handmade film workshops, Block Cinema has explored more sustainable and resourceful approaches to making moving images. Lake Effects extends that inquiry through commissions that connect artists’ production practices with their reflections on a shared natural resource.
“We want Block Cinema to be an enduring resource in our region for emerging artists interested in analog film practices,” Metzger said. “Each of these four filmmakers has a different relationship to the lake and a distinctive approach to image-making, but they share economical and holistic approaches to the medium that resonate deeply with Block Cinema’s mission. We’re excited to see those perspectives take shape on 16mm film and to share the resulting works beside the lake itself.”
The May 14, 2027 premiere will bring these artists’ perspectives back to the shoreline that inspired them. Open to campus audiences and the wider community at no cost, the event will feature approximately 45 minutes of new films projected in their original 16mm format, followed by a conversation with the contributing artists. Presenting the films beside Lake Michigan will place the moving images in direct relationship with their subject and invite audiences to consider how artists interpret a familiar landscape.
The Illinois Arts Council’s Fiscal Year 2027 Creative Projects Grant program supports arts projects by Illinois artists and eligible organizations, including colleges and universities. Funded projects must culminate in a public release or presentation of the work accomplished during the grant period.
Additional attendance details will be announced closer to the premiere.
