The pinnacle of Chicago’s Movie Workplace is out.
Deputy Commissioner Jonah Zeiger’s departure, which was confirmed Tuesday by the Division of Cultural Affairs and Particular Occasions, is the most recent in a collection of high-profile employees modifications in current months on the division.
Zeiger — who usually greeted the general public at occasions like Millennium Park’s film collection and different movie festivals — is at the least the fourth DCASE deputy commissioner to exit since Mayor Brandon Johnson appointed Clinée Hedspeth to steer the division in March.
Johnson fired her predecessor, Erin Harkey, in February. Harkey was a former Mayor Lori Lightfoot appointee.
Chicago’s Movie Workplace attracts characteristic movies, commercials and TV reveals to stage manufacturing within the metropolis, and it performs a key position in helping with allowing and logistical help. Earlier this yr, FX’s The Bear, starring Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri, filmed its third season regionally.
Courtesy of Chuck Hodes/FX
Lightfoot additionally appointed Zeiger to the position of deputy commissioner for the Chicago Movie Workplace in 2022.
The Movie Workplace is answerable for attracting characteristic movies, TV reveals, commercials and extra to movie in Chicago, in accordance with the town. The workplace can be the hub for allowing and logistical help for manufacturing crews whereas they’re on the town.
Along with housing the Movie Workplace, DCASE oversees large-scale occasions like Style of Chicago and Blues Fest. The division additionally administers grants to Chicago cultural organizations and artists. The excessive churn in current months has involved some shut observers that institutional data is being misplaced.
A DCASE spokeswoman didn’t reply to a query in regards to the circumstances of Zeiger’s departure and wouldn’t say whether or not or not the Movie Workplace emptiness has been crammed internally. However the management change comes at a key time: The town is grappling with tips on how to drum up extra income, and through a contentious funds season, a number of alderpersons stated they’d prefer to see the movie trade deliver in additional {dollars}.
In 2022, it was estimated that the Chicago Movie Workplace generated about $575,000 in allow income, in accordance with the state.
The will for development was pressured steadily throughout DCASE’s Metropolis Corridor funds listening to final month, the place Zeiger was available to answer to film-specific questions and considerations.
Chicago’s movie trade has scored some large wins in recent times, together with mega-hit The Bear, which has filmed three seasons in Chicago up to now and has attracted each loyal followers and significant acclaim. It’s the most-nominated TV present on the upcoming 2025 Golden Globe Awards.
Zeiger informed WBEZ in February that it’s the kind of venture that may solely come out of Chicago.
“It actually couldn’t be made wherever else; it simply wouldn’t be the identical venture,” Zeiger stated on the time. “I’d like to see an increasing number of reveals and tasks which might be actually pure Chicago, and but they’re getting a nationwide and even a world viewers.”
The town additionally hosted a collaboration with the Sundance Institute over the summer time; it was the primary such occasion to be held outdoors the esteemed competition’s longtime dwelling in Park Metropolis, Utah. Zeiger known as the three-day competition an opportunity to “elevate and supercharge our group.”
“Chicago is known as a expertise magnet,” Zeiger stated on the time. “Creatives come right here. They thrive right here, however additionally they wrestle to get entry to the upper ranges of the trade that’s extra constructed out on the coasts. A company like Sundance is steadily seen as a gateway to the actual movers and the shakers, particularly within the unbiased movie house.”
Previous to arriving at DCASE, Zeiger labored in movie manufacturing and in larger training at each Northwestern and DePaul universities.
Zeiger and Betsey Grais, with the Movie Workplace, have been not too long ago featured within the arts publication NewCity as amongst Chicago’s movie trade’s most interesting. Within the interview, Zeiger stated he’s guided by a favourite saying: “Every little thing you’ll be able to think about can occur. However not in the way in which you think about.”
“For me, it’s a dream problem of a lifetime: to assist transfer the needle within the media house for the best metropolis and expertise supply within the nation,” he informed the publication.
Zeiger didn’t reply by presstime to a request for remark.
Courtney Kueppers is an arts and tradition reporter at WBEZ.
