Chicago Filmmakers Firehouse Cinema (1326 W. Hollywood Ave.)| April 5, 2025 - 6:00PM

Join Onion City for RONALD NAMETH’S THE GUNA REELS: A Kaleidoscopic Journey Through Human Nature and the Cosmos, the fourth screening in Chicago Filmmakers’ PICTURE RESTART SERIES: 16mm FILMS FROM THE PICTURE START COLLECTION!

For the fourth program in our PICTURE RESTART series, we are showcasing a quintessentially experimental odyssey. Drawing upon the Bhagavad Gita and other works of Hindu philosophy, Ronald Nameth crafts a kaleidoscopic meditation on war and peace, sex and violence, and the essential forces of human nature. THE GUNA REELS is a triptych with an overture and a coda, journeying from darkness and ignorance to supreme cosmic awareness by navigating through the concepts of tamas, rajas, and sattva. Made while Nameth was a student at the Institute of Design at Illinois Tech, this experimental epic has not played for an audience since the early 70s. Around the same time, Nameth made The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, a film capturing themultimedia performances of Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground and Nico during one week of their happenings in Chicago. 1968, 100 mins, 16mm, B/W & color.

Content Warning: some flashing light, nudity