Chicago International Film Festival

CTL-E-6298 · Event · other · 1964–present

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07484 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6298.

The Chicago International Film Festival is Chicago's annual international film festival, founded in 1964 by filmmaker and graphic designer Michael Kutza — who was 22 and worked with silent-screen star Colleen Moore — and presented by Cinema/Chicago, the year-round nonprofit cultural and educational organization Kutza also founded. The festival made its debut on November 9, 1965, at the Carnegie Theatre at Rush and Oak Streets, and Cinema/Chicago bills it as North America's longest-running competitive international film festival. Its juried prizes are the Hugo Awards, headed by the Gold Hugo for Best Film in the International Feature Film Competition, with Silver Hugos and category Gold Hugos across the New Directors, International Documentary and OutLook (Q-Hugo) competitions. Kutza served as artistic director through 2017 — longer, the organization notes, than any other festival artistic director — before passing the role to Mimi Plauché. The 62nd edition ran October 14–25, 2026, across the AMC NEWCITY 14, the Music Box Theatre, the Gene Siskel Film Center, the Chicago History Museum and the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, where 11 films and An Evening with Marlon Wayans played on the South Side, October 16–22. The edition presented 113 feature films and 57 shorts from 60 countries and marked the 30th anniversary of the festival's Black Perspectives program (CTL-E-6301).

The record

• Also known as: CIFF, Chicago Film Festival, ChiFilmFest

Notes

Staged 2026-10-21 under CTL-GOV-006 (Festival Pass, founder's order, CULTGRAPH room). Gate A: confirmed absent from the live graph (4,001 records) and the canonical CSV master (4,111) by normalized name + alias sweep at the head, 2026-10-21. PHOTO: the cleared image is a documentary photograph of the festival's own 2007 closing night at the Harris Theater; the subject pictured is a festival guest, stated plainly per depict-the-subject discipline. The festival's own logo file on Commons (PD textlogo) was passed over — a brand mark, not a documentary photograph (All Platinum precedent, Sweep 3). Several Commons files titled 'CIFF' depict the Calgary and Cairo festivals — namesake festivals, rejected by name. [Media layer — folded from the staged festival-pass packet at merge, 2026-10-21] Map: N/A — A multi-venue citywide Event; its principal 62nd-edition venues are not homed as Place/Venue records in this graph (the Music Box Theatre is master-only, CTL-PL-0003; the graph's 'The Music Box,' CTL-E-1191, is Ron Hardy's house-music club — a different subject; the Logan Center is unhomed in both stores), so no single map is drawn. Photo: CLEARED — PHOTO-CTL-E-6298-01 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Laura_Linney_at_closing_night_of_Chicago_Film_Festival_2007.jpg — creator: Javier (Flickr user Hello ChateauHo) — credit: Javier (Hello ChateauHo), CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Source: CultureTechLens — rights: CC BY-SA 2.0 — Wikimedia Commons API extmetadata (read 2026-10-21): LicenseShortName "CC BY-SA 2.0", License "cc-by-sa-2.0", UsageTerms "Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0". Share-alike conditions travel with any use; the license is not public domain. Chart: FILLED — CTL-created timeline (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced facts. Video: HELD — No CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity video verified at the file level in this pass; official-channel embeds were not file-verified, so the slot is held rather than assumed. Audio: HELD — No rights-cleared matching-entity audio exists for this record.

Relationships

• Chicago — held at
  The 62nd edition screened at venues across Chicago — AMC NEWCITY 14, Music Box Theatre, Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago History Museum, the Logan Center at the University of Chicago, and community pop-ups (SCREEN Magazine, Oct 14, 2026). CTL-E-3437 is the graph's Chicago Locality record. Venue-level held_at edges are blocked (see packet) — the Music Box Theatre is master-only and the Logan Center is unhomed.
• Cinema/Chicago — related to
  Cinema/Chicago is 'the presenting organization of the Chicago International Film Festival' (its standing boilerplate). The schema's presenting predicate, organized, requires an Organization from-type and cannot run from the festival or to it in this direction with an Institution endpoint — related_to is the legal shape; see blocked relationships in the packet.
• Michael Kutza — founded by
  Cinema/Chicago's May 2018 release: Kutza 'founded the Chicago International Film Festival at age 22 in 1964 with silent screen star Colleen Moore.'

Referenced by

• Black Perspectives — related to → this record
• Marlon Wayans — related to → this record

Sources

• Cinema/Chicago press release, May 2018, 'Founder and CEO of Cinema/Chicago Michael Kutza To Step Down at the End Of 2018,' chicagofilmfestival.com (also reprinted by SHOOTonline and RogerEbert.com): Kutza 'founded the Chicago International Film Festival at age 22 in 1964 with silent screen star Colleen Moore; the Festival made its debut at the Carnegie Theatre at Rush and Oak Streets on November 9, 1965. Kutza served as Artistic Director through 2017, holding that title longer than any other Festival artistic director, at which time he passed the baton to Mimi Plauché and Kutza was promoted to CEO.' (primary source · build store)
• Cinema/Chicago — 62nd Chicago International Film Festival hub and Festival How To / FAQ, chicagofilmfestival.com (accessed 2026-10-21): the 62nd edition runs October 14–25, 2026; the festival is 'North America's longest-running competitive international film festival'; named programs include Black Perspectives. (primary source · build store)
• Cinema/Chicago awards release for the 61st festival (2025), as reprinted by VIMooZ, October 24, 2025: the Hugo structure — Gold Hugo for Best Film in the International Feature Competition; Silver Hugo jury and craft prizes; Gold Hugo in the New Directors and International Documentary competitions; Gold Q-Hugo in the OutLook Competition; the Chicago Award; and (from the 55th-edition release, chicagofilmfestival.com) the Founder's Award, 'selected by Chicago International Film Festival founder Michael Kutza.' (primary source · build store)
• SCREEN Magazine, 'Chicago International Film Festival Opens Tonight, Here's the Full Lineup of Films and Programs,' October 14, 2026: the 62nd edition screens at AMC NEWCITY 14, the Music Box Theatre, the Gene Siskel Film Center, the Chicago History Museum, the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago, and community pop-ups at Kennedy-King College and the National Museum of Mexican Art. (build store)
• Eloise Marie Valadez, 'Chicago International Film Festival offers diverse selection of works,' Spotlight on Lake / The Times of Northwest Indiana (October 2026): 62nd edition presents 113 feature films, 57 shorts, four World Premieres, 15 North American Premieres and 21 U.S. Premieres, films from 60 countries (senior programmer Anthony Kaufman); Okonedo tribute 6 p.m. Oct. 21 at Music Box Theatre; Wayans evening 7:30 p.m. Oct. 19 at the Reva and David Logan Center; opening film Club Kid, closing film Behemoth! (build store)

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Record CTL-E-6298 · Combined Graph record U-07484 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 5 sources · 5 mapped relationships.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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