A still from David Strutzels film Close to You

  • A still from David Strutzel’s film Close to You

The Chicago Film Archives was created in 2003 to save from destruction the film collection once owned by the Chicago Public Library, and since then it’s worked to catalog and preserve not only those 5,000 films but also a growing number of collections donated by other local institutions and collectors. (Full disclosure: my wife works part-time for CFA, which is a nonprofit.) A few weeks ago CFA launched a website that details its huge and growing holdings for the first time, offering a fully searchable database.