Kurt Heyl

Before Brakhage and Landow, there was Kurt Heyl, a South Side native, musician, and School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s first film student, who briefly held together that school’s experimental film program with spit, spirit, and stubborn grit. Built from Heyl’s own words and images, this video essay kicks off the Chicago Media Histories Project with a rough-edged tribute to a nearly forgotten chapter in underground cinema.

A young draft resister finds peace and love in the country, but his solution to the problems of the city may very well be a naive dream.

An expressionist documentary of the filmmaker's ex-neighborhood (Mayor Daley's neighborhood) where sirens may go off any moment.

He sat and shat knowing all sit and shit and feeling at one with humanity. Introduction by Ron Nameth, music by Grateful Dead and Olivier Messiaen.

A tragic lyric of adolescent love

Film shot on Skid Row (Madison Street, Chicago) during the "Great Inflation."

A young draft resister finds peace and love in the country, but his solution to the problems of the city may very well be a naive dream.

An expressionist documentary of the filmmaker's ex-neighborhood (Mayor Daley's neighborhood) where sirens may go off any moment.

He sat and shat knowing all sit and shit and feeling at one with humanity. Introduction by Ron Nameth, music by Grateful Dead and Olivier Messiaen.

A tragic lyric of adolescent love

Film shot on Skid Row (Madison Street, Chicago) during the "Great Inflation."

A short film by Kurt Heyl