Past Fest is increasing! Try the small print beneath
From the Press Launch
Past Fest, the most important style movie pageant in the USA, is proud to announce its first geographical enlargement. In-built partnership with Chicago’s iconic Music Field Theatre, this new evolution of Past Fest will happen April 2–5, 2026, bringing 4 days of all-killer-no-filler, cinematic extra and celebration.
Submissions for Past Chicago at the moment are open via FilmFreeway, inviting filmmakers from across the globe — particularly these from Chicago, the Midwest, and the Nice Lakes area — to convey their wildest, weirdest, and most uncompromising visions to display screen with one of many nation’s most passionate movie communities.
“Since inception, Past Fest has existed in service of movie followers and filmmakers which can be obsessively obsessed with movie,” stated Christian Parkes, Past Fest founder. “This ardour isn’t one thing that resides completely in Los Angeles; for many years, Music Field Theatre has fostered and entertained a few of the greatest audiences on the planet. It’s going to be electrical, having our worlds collide.”
Past Fest will convey to Chicago what it does greatest: high-energy premieres, beautiful repertory screenings, iconic expertise, and late-night discoveries, reworking the Music Field Theatre right into a hub of packed homes, huge reactions, and cinematic exuberance that may solely be skilled within the communal setting of a movie show. Championing each world and native cinema, Past Fest Chicago will showcase movies that problem, thrill, and unite, highlighting the complete spectrum of our most electrifying artwork kind.
“The Music Field has all the time been a house for daring, visionary cinema,” saidMusic Field Theatre Proprietor, Brody Sheldon. “Partnering with Past Fest means bringing that power to a brand new technology of filmmakers and followers — those who make this metropolis’s movie scene the loudest, smartest, and most passionate within the nation.”
Based in Los Angeles in 2013, Past Fest is the highest-attended and most densely programmed style movie pageant within the U.S., with its most up-to-date version drawing over 30,000 attendees and screening 95 options. Recognized for its boundary-pushing programming and in-person appearances from seminal filmmakers together with James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro, S. S. Rajamouli, Julia Ducournau, and Bong Joon Ho, Past Fest has constructed a status for fearless storytelling and ardent fan help — qualities that it’s dedicated to bringing to Chicago.
Nestled within the coronary heart of Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood on Southport Avenue, the independently owned and operated Music Field Theatre has been the house for impartial, overseas, and traditional cinema since 1929. With its glowing marquee, historic predominant auditorium, and famously loyal late-night crowds, the Music Field stands as each a neighborhood landmark and a cornerstone of town’s movie tradition.
Past Chicago is offered by Past Fest and the Music Field Theatre combining their shared mission to protect, rejoice, and advance the cinematic arts.
Filmmakers can submit their work now by way of FilmFreeway
(https://filmfreeway.com/BeyondFestChicago). The complete lineup, company, and particular occasions shall be introduced in 2026.
For extra data, go to beyondfest.com and musicboxtheatre.com
