Long before there was SUNDANCE, TRIBECA, and TORONTO, there was CHICAGO and a young kid from Chicago's West Side named Michael Kutza. He decided that his city needed to see what it was missing around the world in international cinema and the glamor of Hollywood. So, the founded the Chicago International Film Festival in 1964, with the help of silent screen star Colleen Moore and legendary film director King Vidor. What followed was a roller-coaster ride that lasted for better than half a century, with Kutza presiding over a gathering that throughout the decades hosted a veritable Who's Who of the film world - from Harold Llyod to Clint Eastwood, Bette Davis to Viola Davis, Steven Spielberg to Spike Lee, Guillermo de Toro to Jodie Foster, Lauren Bacall to Al Pacino. At the same time, the festival introduced a pleathora of new talent that would go on to revolutionize the movie business, from Martin Scorsese on. --

Foreword / David Robinson -- Introduction: a cinematic life / John Russell Taylor -- West Side Story -- A Star is Born -- Greatest Show on Earth -- Sex and the City -- La Dolce Vita -- I Call First -- In Old Chicago -- Stardust memories -- A Few Good Men -- Women -- Sorry, Wrong Number -- Omen -- Singin' in the rain -- It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World -- Jurassic Park -- Ladies of the Chorus -- All The King's Men -- Film Critic -- Chicago -- A Highlight Chronology from the first half century plus of the Chicago International Film Festival -- Michael Kutza - Honors -- Acknowledgements