Cinema Crawl coming to Chambana next spring

CHAMPAIGN — Film CU, a division of Experience Champaign-Urbana, and the Film-Fanatic Club are proud to announce the inaugural CU Cinema Crawl, taking place March 3–8, 2027, at more than a dozen venues throughout Champaign-Urbana.

The festival will transform familiar cultural spaces, theaters, museums, and gathering places into destinations for cinematic discovery. Participating venues include the Virginia Theatre, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Parkland Staerkel Planetarium, Analog Wine Library, Spurlock Museum, University YMCA, The Literary Book Bar, Krannert Art Museum, Savoy 16, and many more. The festival’s complete film lineup and schedule announcements will be available soon.

The CU Cinema Crawl encourages audiences to “Start somewhere. End somewhere better.” It is a weeklong celebration of moving, watching, arguing, discovering—and doing it all over again the next night. Attendees can bring a friend to something they would never choose for themselves, let a stranger’s favorite film become their own, and find themselves decades in the past, a continent away, or eerily close to home.

By presenting films in venues across Champaign-Urbana, the festival will encourage audiences to explore the community while experiencing cinema in new and unexpected ways. Each stop on the crawl will offer another opportunity to encounter a different story, perspective, place, or fellow film fan.

The CU Cinema Crawl is currently seeking sponsors interested in supporting the inaugural festival and helping build an engaging new cultural experience. Sponsorship opportunities are available for organizations seeking to connect with film audiences while supporting arts, culture, and community vitality.

Film selections, ticket information, participating venues, and additional festival details will be available in the coming months.

To learn more about the festival or sponsorship opportunities, visit cucinemacrawl.org or contact Terri Reifsteck at [email protected].

Jake Leonard, Executive Editor-In-Chief

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Jake Leonard, a broadcast media and journalism veteran, is the editor-in-chief of Heartland Newsfeed. Leonard is also GM and program director of Heartland Newsfeed Radio Network, wrestling editor and contributing writer for Ambush Sports, a contributing writer for My Sports Vote and Midwest Sports Network, and a former contributor to Bleacher Report and Overtime Heroics. He resides at home in Nokomis, Ill. with his dog Buster.

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