This Saturday, the Urbana Free Library will be hosting Home Movie Day from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Half film festival, half “film clinic,” Home Movie Day was put together in 2003 by a group of film archivists who wanted to do something to encourage people not to get rid of their home movies. They saw a trend emerging where people would have the contents of their old family film reels transferred to videotape or DVD, then throw the old films away. Because these newer methods are not as reliable or long lasting as actual film, they were worried that there would soon be a huge gap in our cultural record. Home Movies are important for many reasons beyond family sentimentality: they portray what life was like in America (or elsewhere) for that brief second in time. Therefore, they are a great resource to historians, documentarians, film directors, costume designers, and other Hollywood types.
There are more details about this event after the jump.
Starting at 10 a.m., a “film clinic” will be offered, in which you may bring your old 8mm, 16mm, or Super8 films to be assessed and cleaned by professional archivists. Information about care and storage of these old films will also be shared. If you decide that you would rather not keep your old films, Anke Voss from the Champaign County Historical Archives will be on the scene to discuss the different places your films can be donated, where they may be accessed by you or others for research purposes.
There will also be a table where kids can create their own cartoons on film, and see them projected on the big screen.
Perhaps the best thing about the festival, though, is the continuous screening of home movies from personal collections. It is perfect for those who have a shoebox full of film reels sitting in their garage with no access to a projector. It can be a great opportunity to view a piece of your family’s history that you haven’t been able to see in a while, or perhaps, have never seen before. Jimi Jones, organizer of Home Movie Day in C-U for the last three years, explains why he loves the screenings: “Most of the home movies are silent, which is wonderful, because the people that brought them can narrate. Young people enjoy it because they get to see their town in a way that they’ve never seen it before.”