HMD’s New York event report is in:
Event Venue: Anthology Film Archives
Event time (screening): noon-5
Event time (inspection): noon-5
Total Audience: about 50
Number of people bringing films: 14
Films screened by Gauge:
8mm: 8
Super 8: 11
16mm: 4
9.5mm: 0
Video: 0
Volunteers: Katie Trainor (organizer), Diana Little, Yvonne Ng, John Passmore, Andy Uhrich, Zack Lischer-Katz, Kimberly Tarr, John Migliore, Walter Forsberg, Crystal Rangel, Erwin Verbruggen, Ioannis Papaloizou, Jenn Blaylock
plus Dan Streible and Howard Besser did a great job getting the audience talking!
Special events/screenings: no
Press (pre-event and post-event): listings in Time Out NY and The Village Voice
Report submitted by: Diana Little
Sorry this is so long. I’m making up for previous years.
Our screenings started out strong with a 16mm color film brought in by Robert Penn, whose father was a Baptist minister. Dr. Robert E. Penn, Sr. had shot the film while in Nigeria doing missionary work in 1966. My favorite sequence of the film featured some guys performing logic-defying dance moves that must be seen to be believed. Unlike many of the films brought to HMD, this film showed signs of use and wear, and the contributor confirmed that it was likely shown frequently to congregations back home. We were all charmed when Robert Jr. called his 88-year-old mother to ask some questions about the events depicted in the film.
Natalia Fidelholtz’s film of her mother’s 3rd birthday at the family home in Buenos Aires was another crowd-pleaser from the early part of the afternoon. Little “Pinky” and her friends and relatives were entertained by a ventriloquist and trained dogs in this 16mm black-and-white film shot in 1952. Natalia, whose father was an ambassador, also brought us a 16mm sound film of Tricia Nixon lighting the Christmas tree at the Argentine embassy.
Our first Super8 of the day was contributed by a woman who thought we would be screening film of her uncle’s chicken farm near Seville, Spain. All were quite surprised then that the film, which had been found in her mother’s house in Spain, depicted her 1967 wedding in Durham NC; she had had no previous knowledge that the film existed. She and her husband, who was also present, had celebrated their 41st anniversary just four days before, and if that wasn’t enough to get the audience worked up, the woman told us that she had just become a U.S. citizen the previous day!
HMD volunteer Jenn Blaylock shared with us a Super8 film that she had shot on a cross-country road trip last summer. Incredibly, the film covers nearly a dozen states in one 50’ reel. Such American wonders as the Washington Monument and “South of the Border” are featured. The Super8 continued with two films contributed by a regular NYC HMD attendee. The New York audience was especially entertained by the one that was shot in the squalid-looking graffiti-covered subways that existed in the 1980s.
Ken Brown wowed us for the second year in a row with two eye-popping films he had shot in 1984 on Fuji single 8. “Tiger Balm Gardens” was a beautiful exploration of a sculptural theme park in Hong Kong. In it the filmmaker exploited the ability of his camera to do lap-dissolves and multiple exposures. We liked it so much we watched it twice. Ken’s other film, the sometimes-pixelated record of a Boston Shriner parade, was equally dazzling.
Tim Graney brought in film of his family, including Home Movie Day co-founder Brian, from the 1970s. Brian gleefully getting up over and over after his father (the cameraman) pushes him back into the kiddie pool was my favorite part. Backyard kiddie pools seemed to be a theme this year.
HMD volunteer Kimberly Tarr’s contribution won the unofficial prize for most underwear (kids and adults!) in a single film, and baby Kim struggling to stay awake in her high chair was possibly the cutest moment in a day filled with films of adorable children. HMD volunteers really came through this year. Projectionist Walter Forsberg brought us two remarkable reels of Super8 he had shot in Iraq in 2003.
To fill in gaps between audience contributions, Katie Trainor brought in a collection of 8mm films purchased on e-bay. They seemed to have been shot by a single family over many years and covered many of the things we expect to see in American home movies: bbq-ing, swimming in the lake, Easter-egg hunts, vacation in Hawaii and ski and golf vacations, an amusement park, a military parade, and the changing foliage of many seasons. We felt a little bit closer to this anonymous family by the end of the afternoon, and their “classic” home movies provided a nice counterpoint to the spectacular cavalcade of films they accompanied.