Onion City Experimental Film Festival

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Onion City Experimental Film Festival

Onion City now accepting submissions via Film Freeway. NEXT DEADLINE 12/15/23 | LATE DEADLINE 1/18/24

Onion City is one of the premiere international festivals exclusively devoted to experimental film and video. Onion City was founded in the 1980s by the Experimental Film Coalition and run by them for many years. Chicago Filmmakers assumed responsibility for the festival in 2001, and expanded the size and opened it up to video work as well as film. It is generally 8-10 programs over four days and

features roughly 60-70 works from around the world. Aside from the competition programs, there are occasional special presentations of new or old films of note or guest presentations. Screenings take place at Chicago Filmmakers and other venues around mid-June.

04/14/2026

Without further ado, the 36th Onion City Experimental Film Festival Juror Prize Winners! Congratulations!⁠
⁠
Mist | Brittany Gravely | 2025⁠
⁠
"Mist blends the occurrence of natural phenomena and an air of mourning by blanketing the viewer in fleeting yet quiet and carefully considered compositions. The air of Mist contains an unspoken nostalgia and a recognition of the way of things. It's quite a gorgeous and absorbing film with a profound sensitivity to the medium and the experience of viewing."⁠
-Emily Faith Martin⁠
⁠
A Metamorphosis | Lin Htet Aung | 2025⁠
⁠
"Oppression and violence leave their imprints on the body and memory, like a lingering noise. How do we speak of these shadowed memories? Transforming the language of broadcasting, the film mobilizes the colors of the flag and propaganda imagery, turning everyday objects into uncanny, unsettling presences. Within constricted spaces, even the most charged movements appear trapped; a once-familiar lullaby is taken over by another, now estranged, voice. Intimacy slips into unease, and play is overshadowed by control. Shaped by a poetic sensibility, the film unfolds as a deeply felt experience." ⁠
-Jiayi Chen⁠
⁠
The Joy of Cooking | Coleman Stewart | 2024⁠
⁠
Beautiful, patient, and full of humor. Foreign bodies are flung into a riverside cave, collecting together in what seems like a pattern. A serenely disorienting work. Each frame in turn deepens its mysteries.⁠
-Sam Flancher

04/13/2026

04/13/2026

And… CUT! Thank you to each and every person who took part in this multi-layered fest! 🧅🎬🧅🎬🧅🎬

Stay tuned for our jury award announcements on social media and on the Onion City website at the link in bio.

04/12/2026

Sunday! It’s the final day of the fest! Come out to Chicago Filmmakers (1326 W Hollywood Ave) from noon to six for three thematic programs. Then, join us in the loop at the Siskel Film Center for our closing screening — Isiah Medina’s GANGSTERISM.

Onions, onions, onions, onions…

04/10/2026

TONIGHT! [WE DON’T KNOW YET] WHAT A CINEMA CAN DO. Thank you Newcity for the highlight!

Disintegrating Archives: a night of expanded cinema. Public Works Gallery (2141 W. North Ave) | April 10, 2026 - 8:00PM
Doors Open at 7:30PM & Show Starts at 8:00PM

CCAM and Onion City Film Festival present the third annual iteration of
[WE DON’T KNOW YET] WHAT A CINEMA CAN DO, a night of new media live performance with the theme of Disintegrating Archives.

This year WDKY features new works or reworkings by three artists developing distinct technical, aesthetic, and cultural niches: AJ McClenon’s text, repurposed materials, moving and still images, performance, and sound work is driven by familial and collective grief, water, Blackness, geomorphology, abolitionist thought, and the global future. The arts collective Alterotics’ moving-image art, archival research, and event hosting activates public life for trans/queer people. James Connolly’s real-time sound and media performance activates expressive potentials of technical systems sequestered behind consumer interfaces.

These three artists are also joined by special guest Aria Pedraza, who will introduce the Midwest Rave Culture Archive

04/09/2026

Onion City opens in just a few hours’ time! Don’t miss tonight’s special screening — USEFUL FANTASY — co-presented by 150 Media Stream and Peter Burr at the Siskel Film Center (164 N. State Street) on Thursday, April 9, 2026 at 8pm . Tickets are available at the link in bio and at www.onioncityfilmfest.org. The program will be preceded by a reception and installation hosted by 150 Media Stream at 150 N. Riverside Plaza from 5:30pm–7:30pm. Come celebrate with us!

“Most fantasy is useless. That’s the point. It’s the space we reserve for what doesn’t have to justify itself. USEFUL FANTASY insists on having both of its ways, gathering films that build worlds through their psychic accumulation, letting meaning emerge so indirectly it might not emerge at all...” – Peter Burr

USEFUL FANTASY is a special shorts program at the Siskel Film Center curated by artist Peter Burr and presented in partnership with 150 Media Stream. The program features a 35mm print of Suzan Pitt’s iconic ASPARAGUS (1979) restored by the Academy Film Archive, as well as Peter Tscherkassky’s avant-garde masterpiece OUTER SPACE (1999, 35mm). Accompanying these prints are digital presentations of Peter Burr’s ALONE WITH THE MOON (2012), Vince Collins’s MALICE IN WONDERLAND (1982), Shana Moulton’s THE MOUNTAIN WHERE EVERYTHING IS UPSIDE DOWN (2005), and Boris Labbé’s LA CHUTE (2018). Peter Burr will be in attendance to present a work-in-progress preview of his generative artwork MAINTENANCE GAME (2026).

Images
THE MOUNTAIN WHERE EVERYTHING IS UPSIDE DOWN (2007), Shana Moulton
MALICE IN WONDERLAND (1982), Vince Collins
OUTER SPACE (1999), Peter Tscherkassky
ALONE WITH THE MOON (2012), Peter Burr
LA CHUTE (2018), Borris Labbé

04/08/2026

Glimpses from the rewind bench! and inspecting 35mm prints of Suzan Pitt’s ASPARAGUS (1979) restored by and courtesy of the Academy Film Archive, and Peter Tscherkassky’s OUTER SPACE (1999, 35mm).

Join us tomorrow night for USEFUL FANTASY, a special shorts program at the Siskel Film Center curated by artist Peter Burr. The program features the prints pictured, alongside digital presentations of Peter Burr’s ALONE WITH THE MOON (2012), Vince Collins’s MALICE IN WONDERLAND (1982), Shana Moulton’s THE MOUNTAIN WHERE EVERYTHING IS UPSIDE DOWN (2005), and Boris Labbé’s LA CHUTE (2018). Peter Burr will be in attendance to present a work-in-progress preview of his generative artwork MAINTENANCE GAME (2026).

Onion City Opening Night — USEFUL FANTASY — co-presented by 150 Media Stream and Peter Burr at the Siskel Film Center (164 N. State Street) on Thursday, April 9, 2026 at 8pm . Tickets are available at the link in bio and at www.onioncityfilmfest.org.

The program will be preceded by a reception and installation hosted by 150 Media Stream at 150 N. Riverside Plaza from 5:30pm–7:30pm. Come celebrate with us!

04/08/2026

Mark you calendars for Onion City's closing night — OFF CENTER: GANGSTERISM with Isiah Medina in person . Gene Siskel Film Center (164 N. State Street) | Sunday, April 12, 2026 at 7pm.

Celebrate closing night of the Onion City Experimental Film Festival at the Gene Siskel Film Center with Isiah Medina’s latest feature. GANGSTERISM (2025, Canada, 84 min) updates the gangster film as the tale of director-gangster Clem, who ponders the politics of film circulation, financing, and representation while his artist cronies track down an old comrade rumored to be a leaker.

Isiah Medina and composer Kieran Daly are scheduled to attend for a post-screening conversation.

“There are few filmmakers working today, who are more committed to the inordinate possibilities of the cut and the transformative power of montage than Isiah Medina.” —Daniel Turner, ICA London

“Taking his recondite method into consideration, we ascertain that Medina is himself a student, but one who has graduated to the ranks of the Canadian greats.” —Craig Keller

“If classical shot-reverse-shot form observes conversational propriety, Medina’s flickering approach demonstrates a cinema capable of moving at the pace of thought—ideas which fit jaggedly into one another, not flowing so much as butting heads.” —Dylan Adamson, In Review

04/07/2026

💥ONION CITY IS THIS WEEK!💥

Festival passes for Onion City 2026 are available at the link in our bio. We have eight competition programs this year, 59 films in competition, and many filmmakers in attendance! All competition programs take place at Chicago Filmmakers Firehouse Cinema (1326 W Hollywood Ave).

PICK-FIVE PASS
$50 (save $10)
Good for one admission each to any five Onion City screenings at Chicago Filmmakers.

FULL CHICAGO FILMMAKERS PASS
$75 (save $33)
Good for one admission each to all nine screenings at Chicago Filmmakers.

Chicago Filmmakers screenings will include all eight competition programs and BEYOND RESOLUTION: FILMS BY SABINE GRUFFAT.

We’re also less than one week away from our opening night! Join us Thursday, April 9 at 5:30pm for our opening reception at 150 Media Stream to view a digital art installation curated by Peter Burr. The reception will be followed by our opening night screening of USEFUL FANTASY, a special shorts program also curated by Burr, at the Gene Siskel Film Center at 8:00pm.

Graphics .randolph

04/07/2026

Our friends at Northwestern have organized a lecture event with Onion City visiting filmmaker Isiah Medina on Friday, April 10, 2:30pm, Annie May Swift Hall, Peggy Dow Helmerich Auditorium. FINITE MOTION PICTURES, INFINITE STILL CUTS is co-presented by the MFA in Documentary Media, Screen Cultures, the Graduate School, and Block Museum . The lecture is open to the public. See you there!

"Rather than compare pictures with other pictures to have yet another in our mind, can we compare forms of cutting, can we cut together two forms of cutting, can we change the very flicker that organizes motion pictures?"

This Sunday, we will close the festival with Medina's latest feature film GANGSTERISM (2025), 7pm at the Siskel Film Center as part of the monthly experimental film series OFF CENTER . Medina will be present for Q&A that evening with composer Kieran Daly. After the festival, on Monday, April 13, Medina will screen his 2015 feature debut 88:88 alongside a showcase of short films from his production company Quantity Cinema at FACETS with .

04/05/2026

ONION CITY OPENING NIGHT — USEFUL FANTASY
Co-presented by 150 Media Stream and Peter Burr at the Siskel Film Center (164 N. State Street) on Thursday, April 9, 2026 at 8pm . Tickets are available at the link in bio and at www.onioncityfilmfest.org.

“Most fantasy is useless. That’s the point. It’s the space we reserve for what doesn’t have to justify itself. USEFUL FANTASY insists on having both of its ways, gathering films that build worlds through their psychic accumulation, letting meaning emerge so indirectly it might not emerge at all...” – Peter Burr

USEFUL FANTASY is a special shorts program at the Siskel Film Center curated by artist Peter Burr and presented in partnership with 150 Media Stream. The program features a 35mm print of Suzan Pitt’s iconic ASPARAGUS (1979) restored by the Academy Film Archive, as well as Peter Tscherkassky’s avant-garde masterpiece OUTER SPACE (1999, 35mm). Accompanying these prints are digital presentations of Peter Burr’s ALONE WITH THE MOON (2012), Vince Collins’s MALICE IN WONDERLAND (1982), Shana Moulton’s THE MOUNTAIN WHERE EVERYTHING IS UPSIDE DOWN (2005), and Boris Labbé’s LA CHUTE (2018). Peter Burr will be in attendance to present a work-in-progress preview of his generative artwork MAINTENANCE GAME (2026).

The program will be preceded by a reception and installation hosted by 150 Media Stream at 150 N. Riverside Plaza from 5:30pm–7:30pm. Come celebrate with us!

VIDEOS
1. MALICE IN WONDERLAND (1982), Vince Collins
2. ALONE WITH THE MOON (2012), Peter Burr
3. LA CHUTE (2018), Borris Labbé
4. THE MOUNTAIN WHERE EVERYTHING IS UPSIDE DOWN (2007), Shana Moulton
5. MAINTENANCE GAME (2026), Peter Burr

04/04/2026

Thank you to Chicago Reader, Newcity, and Cine-File for the wonderful profiles on the 36th Onion City Experimental Film Festival and .

Programmers Elise Schierbeek and Nicky Ni offer a glimpse of what's in store this year .lake . Ray Pride taps into the history and philosophy of the festival while Kyle Logan goes deep on the wide variety of works to be screened, an excellent preview. Ben Sachs highlights Onion City's opening night reception and installation at 150 Media Stream and Peter Burr's specially curated program USEFUL FANTASY at the Siskel Film Center on April 9 .

Onion City will feature eight competition screenings at Chicago Filmmakers Firehouse Cinema and five special events with . Next week, April 9-12, 2026! Passes and tickets can be purchased at www.onioncityfilmfest.org

Address

1326 W. Hollywood Avenue
Chicago, IL
60660

Telephone

+17732931447

Website

http://www.onioncityfilmfest.org/

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