It all started in a neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side…

In 2021, Jack McCoy and a small team of Columbia College alumni set out to start an independent production company committed to making movies in the greatest city on earth—Chicago IL. An unassuming industrial building off the Southwest corner of Humbodt Park soon became home base for SVC’s first major production, That Boy Across the Street (directed by Harvey Pullings II), and a work/studio space for several productions thereafter.

At around the same time, a need for more widely accessible film-focused spaces was becoming apparent, and Sweet Void Cinema set out to fill that need by establishing a DIY theater with Covid-conscious restrictions and free entry for the vast majority of its programming. During this period, SVC also launched its monthly shorts fest, a citywide open call for entries to filmmakers of all experience levels looking for a place to show their work, which was hugely popular and continues to this day.

After several years of operating as a DIY space, Sweet Void Cinema reached the limit of its capacity to host public screenings at the risk of being shut down by the city, and made the transition to sharing a space above Facets Cinema in Lincoln Park. Since then, Sweet Void Cinema has continued to produce films and program events and screenings that serve the Chicago film community, with the hope of one day reopening its doors as an independent microtheater.

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