Vivian Maier: Photographer (2012, 12min, B&W, Sound)This 12-minute video by Tom Palazzolo and Chicago writer Jack Helbig tells the story of the recently discovered Chicago street photographer Vivian Maier. Though she was unknown in her lifetime, her extensive body of work is rewriting the history of post-World War II American street photography. The video, told from the point of view of Maier herself, recounts her life and work, from her childhood in France to her move to NYC in 1951 and subsequent relocation to Chicago, where the majority of her work was done. The film also delves into the paradox that this now internationally known photographer worked all of her life in obscurity as a nanny and home health care worker.Vivian Maier is played by Chicago actor Judith Hoppe. Edited by Mike Bullis.Down Clark Street (2012, 30min, Color and B&W, Sound)

Tom Palazzolo takes us on a tour of the Chicago neighborhood where he lived in the 1960s, stretching down Clark Street from Chicago Avenue to the Chicago River. Palazzolo combines his own vintage photographs and film footage from the ’60s and ’70s with a modern-day video tour, led by the filmmaker himself. Palazzolo recounts stories of locals that he knew, filmed and photographed on Clark street and speaks of how the neighborhood has changed over the years.

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I Married a Munchkin (1994 | 35 minutes | COLOR)

Chesterton, Indiana’s annual WIZARD OF OZ parade (as well as their many Oz-themed festivities) provides the backdrop for I MARRIED A MUNCHKIN, Tom Palazzolo’s study of the life and career of Mary Ellen St. Aubin. Self-described as “normal, but little,” Mary Ellen details her early start in show business as a performer in an all-dwarf vaudeville act, her brief appearance in 1946’s THREE WISE FOOLS, her 1948 marriage to former Munchkin Parnell St. Aubin and their subsequent retirement from entertainment to run a bar (called the Midget Club) in the South Side of Chicago. Two other former Munchkins (Margaret Pellegrini and Clarence Swensen) briefly appear among the day’s revelry. Also included is a postscript (shot some time after the initial film) featuring Mary Ellen briefly describing the original size of her role in THREE WISE FOOLS, which originally featured a line and an ill-fated “flying” effect. – Tom Fritsche

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Lily’s World of Wax (1987 | 28 minutes | COLOR)

Directed by Ellen Fisher and Tom Palazzolo, edited by Tom Palazzolo

Lillie Santantangelo had for most of the 20 century ran a wax museum at New York’s Coney Island. Just before her museum is closed and her exhibits auctioned off she leads us on a final tour. Old age and declining attendance have forced her to close and sell her wax figures to support herself. This film deals with the loss of her “friends” (the wax figures), she has known for so long. We tour the boardwalk with her one last time as she reminisces about her years as a Coney Island fixture.

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Marquette Park pts. I & II (1976-1980 | 55 minutes | COLOR)