Streaming Monday, October 26 from 12:00 AM CDT to Monday, November 2, 11:59 PM CST

Q&A November 2 at 7:00 PM CST: Discussion with filmmakers Bill Stamets and Peter Kuttner, moderated by Joe Winston.

In partnership with Chicago Film Archives and Media Burn, we are pleased to present CHASING VOTES, CHASING SHADOWS, a collection of films by Chicago Filmmakers Bill Stamets and Peter Kuttner.

On the eve of the U.S. Presidential election, what better time to reflect on media coverage of presidential campaigns of the past and opine on the most under-active voters in America – college-age youth? 

In this collection of vintage political works, Chicago filmmaker and photographer Bill Stamets shadows past presidential candidates on the campaign trail through an ironic ethnographic lens examining the civic theater of “turning every human contact into a photo opportunity,” while filmmaker and activist Peter Kuttner explores political apathy among white college students during the civil rights movement.

Cause Without A Rebel by Peter Kuttner (1965, 8.5 min.)

Exploring political apathy among white college students at Northwestern University during the civil rights movement, the film contrasts traditional college activities (football games, hanging out, attending classes) with political activism (marching, speeches by Martin Luther King, getting arrested and police brutality, and racist violence). The film uses time lapse, slow-motion, and still frames to both indict and activate disengaged youth. 

Bill Stamets approaches political campaigns like an ethnographer at times and like an experimental filmmaker at other times, finding the margins of the campaign, the before the speech and the after the speech, more interesting than the speech itself. In fact, he sometimes denies the political candidates any voice at all. 

Bill not only shadows the candidates through malls and nursing homes, on jogs and factory tours, he also exposes the media apparatus itself, shooting the shooters with the ironic eye of the “outsider.” While the mainstream media industry, complicit with politicians and campaign managers in keeping the gears of the propaganda machine grinding away by focusing on publicist-orchestrated photo ops, sound bites, and speeches, resulting in predictable homogeneity, Bill’s camera tends to wander to what would be the “outtakes” for the others. Ladders coming out, banners coming down, podiums rolled away, balloons being popped – it’s a peripheral vision that exposes the artifice behind the focused manufacture of political iconography.

Iowa & Its Presidents by Bill Stamets (Super-8, sound, 1988, 27 min.) 

The 1988 Iowa Caucuses, including candidates Michael Dukakis, Jesse Jackson, Al Gore, Paul Simon, Dick Gephardt, Bob Dole, and George H.W. Bush.  

Presidential Appearances I and II by Bill Stamets (Super-8, silent, 1988 and 1992, 21 min.)

A “travelogue” of the 1988 and 1992 Presidential campaign.

Primary Visibility by Bill Stamets (DVCAM, 1996, 21 min.)

The 1992 New Hampshire primary with Pat Buchanan, Bob Kerrey, Bill Clinton, and Hillary Clinton. 

A Girl Chased the Shadow of a Wing of a 727 by Bill Stamets (Super-8, silent, 1994, 1 min.)

A young girl more interested in the shadow of its wing than the massive plane itself.


About the Filmmakers:

Bill Stamets is a Chicago-based writer, reviewer, photographer, and filmmaker. He is a Lecturer at the Graham School at the University of Chicago and has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College Chicago, and the University of Colorado at Boulder. He reviews films for the Chicago Sun-Times. He posts film essays at https://billstamets.com/.

Peter Kuttner has worked in both alternative and mainstream media for over 50 years. He has been involved with social justice activist groups, such as Rising Up Angry and Newsreel, worked on Kartemquin Film projects, such as Trick Bag and Now We Live on Clifton, and collaborated on End of the Nightstick, a documentary about police brutality. He was a camera technician on feature films such as Risky Business, Ordinary People, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Groundhog Day, and The Dark Knight.

Joe Winston is the producer and/or director of Citizen Koch, What’s The Matter with Kansas?, The Burning Man Festival, and the cable TV series This Week in Joe’s Basement.