Saturday, August 7, 2010

Super-8 Rides Again (Special Event)

Chicago Filmmakers - Friday, 8pm
In the vernacular of cinema nothing says nostalgia and family quite like Super-8mm. With its simple light-tight cartridge and auto-exposure cameras it really was the format that gave the everyman a chance to capture memories when it was introduced in 1965. By reducing the technical skill required for filmmaking down to simply pointing and shooting it exponentially increased the number of home-movie makers and foreshadowed the era of video and the widespread documentation of weddings, school plays, and the oh-so-common Christmas mornings. While the amateur aesthetic this would suggest is not to be ignored during the unique show at Chicago Filmmakers tonight, nostalgia takes a back seat to a celebration of community. Twenty local filmmakers have each been given a single roll of film to shoot and no one, not even the filmmakers, gets a chance to see the results before they screen.* The format inspires introspection and familiarity, and it is sure to be central to a number of the films. For my contribution I walked around the Damen blue line stop early on a weekday morning and took ten-second portraits of people in my neighborhood. Both an experiment and a chance to talk to strangers on the street (I probably asked 75 people before I had enough willing participants), to me the film was a fitting reflection of the show. Being a part of an artistic community like that in Chicago is much like the city we call home: friendly, under the radar, formally challenging, and happy to take a risk. Many of the filmmakers will be in person. (2010, approx. 70 min, Super-8mm) JH - Cine-File.info

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