For years the Northbrook Public Library has offered the best repertory film screenings in Chicagoland outside the city limits. Every Wednesday the library presents a different classic film free of charge; as an added bonus, movies are often projected from 35-millimeter celluloid (though in recent years the library has screened films from DCP and BluRay as well). The diverse selections showcase the best of every decade of American cinema, with lesser-known titles and foreign films often thrown into the mix. Recent screenings have included the basketball favorite Hoosiers (1986), the family drama I Never Sang for My Father (1970), and the recent South Korean drama The Beauty Inside. Coming in August are four popular literary adaptations, programmed to coincide with the library’s summer reading club; titles include Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940) and Robert Mulligan’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1962).
Gianni also taught Hill to listen to the community, and she says she gets programming suggestions all the time, whether from audience members, library coworkers, or community organizations. “One of the things that we’ve done recently was a partnership with the Village of Northbrook’s community relations commission, which does a celebration-of-cultures event every spring.” A month of foreign films served as a tie-in to the event, and Hill plans to repeat the series next spring.
