The Costume Council of the Chicago History Museum and nenasnotes The Fashion Book Club invite you and your guests to attend a special virtual program featuring STARSTRUCK: How I Magically Transformed Chicago into Hollywood for More Than Fifty Years with author Michael Kutza in conversation with Nena Ivon of nenasnotes.

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 he founded the Chicago International Film Festival in 1964, with the help of silent screen star Colleen Moore and legendary film director King Vidor.

Join the Costume Council and nenasnotes The Fashion Book Club for a special virtual event featuring Michael Kutza in conversation with Nena Ivon. We’ll hear about 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 Lloyd to Clint Eastwood, Bette Davis to Viola Davis, Steven Spielberg to Spike Lee, Guillermo del Toro to Jodie Foster, Lauren Bacall to Al Pacino.

Starstruck: How I Magically Transformed Chicago into Hollywood for More Than Fifty Years is Kutza’s rollicking, provocative, racy, colorful, irreverent show business memoir culled from his decades rubbing elbows with the giants of film at both the Chicago Festival and numerous other festivals around the globe. To purchase the book, please click here.

$45 per person; Zoom link will be sent prior to the program.

Questions? Please contact Nell McKeown at mckeown@chicagohistory.org or (312) 799-2112.