Los Angeles Home Movie Day 2020 (Virtual)
Saturday, October 17th
5:00pm - 8:00pm
https://www.centerforhomemovies.org/event/los-angeles-home-movie-day-2020/
Los Angeles Home Movie Day celebrates amateur and regional film with a free virtual screening at the Archives Bazaar
Participation is FREE!
Submit your films for free digitization and inclusion at: https://www.bit.ly/homemoviedayla
Submit 16mm, 8mm, Super 8mm by Sunday, September 20th
Submit digital files by Wednesday, September 30th
Long before social media, small-gauge film stock and videotape made it possible for families to document their lives at home and abroad. The many reels of amateur film shot around the world are now appreciated as primary documents that help bring regional history to life, resulting in “one of the largest and most significant bodies of moving-image work produced in the 20th century” (MoMA: Private Lives Public Spaces).
Since 2003, Home Movie Day has made it possible for individuals to watch and reconnect with their own family films, even if they may lack the expertise or equipment to view them. Every October, local archivists set up a space with all the necessary inspection equipment, cleaning tools, splicers, and projectors, and invite anyone with a collection of home movies to bring them in and have a look. Throughout the day, we project them on screen for all to enjoy and revel in the surprises brought to life. For one person it might be their grandparents’ wedding film, unseen for decades. For another, a beloved pet running across the front yard once again.
Taken together, home movies and amateur film provide a look at life without the distortion of mainstream film production. There’s joy, sadness, and beauty in the images, and Home Movie Day is designed to ensure they remain available for years to come.
Home Movie Day 2019 at the Archives Bazaar. Photo: Ryan Savoy
For two of the past three years, Los Angeles Home Movie Day has been set up at the Archives Bazaar. In 2017 we included curated selections from ONE Archives, CalTech, LACMA, Visual Communications, and the Mayme Clayton Library, along with surprises brought in by attendees. In 2019 we debuted an anonymous 16mm anamorphic widescreen home movie of Disneyland in 1958, recently collected by the Academy Film Archive.
This year, the 18th Annual Los Angeles Home Movie Day will be online for the first time as part of the virtual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar. The live streaming event will consist of materials curated from a diverse array of Los Angeles cultural institutions, as well as reels collected from Angelenos and digitized in advance. Organized in conjunction with the Center for Home Movies, the local event will be one of many beamed across the world on Home Movie Day on October 17th.
We encourage you to submit your 8mm, Super 8, 16mm home movies by Sunday, September 20 to have them digitized for free, with priority for first-time Home Movie Day participants. This year we are generously sponsored by Pro8mm in Burbank to produce high quality digital scans. If your film or video has already been digitized, we’d love to include it as well. Please submit digital files no later than Wednesday, September 30.
There will be participatory games and prize giveaways, as well as other surprises. Participation is free for those contributing material as well as those who just want to watch—and we encourage you to ask us about how to keep your own home movies safe (no flooded basements!).