Most heartening film-related developments in Chicago

1. The Gene Siskel Film Center’s 2001 move from its old, barnlike auditorium on Columbus Drive and Jackson Boulevard (on the park-facing side of the Art Institute) to its sleek new State Street location right next to an El stop has been a blessing to serious cinephiles.
2. The art-house filmgoing landscape shifted with the opening of the Landmark Century Centre in 2000. For the Music Box, it has meant a national chain competing for the right to screen hot art-house titles. That’s bad for the Music Box but good for viewers, who are getting more films to choose from.
3. The Ryerson Steel Plant is purchased in the fall of 2009 and is undergoing conversion into a new film-studio facility. Prospects are good for more films, commercials and other projects to take advantage of this massive new space.
4. State incentives such as the wage-base tax credit (2003) and the Illinois Film Production Tax Credit (2008) have made it more enticing for filmmakers to skip Toronto and shoot in Chicago—and in Illinois in general, but how many movies are being shot in DeKalb?