From private document to object of public reflection, from domestic memory to piece of collective history: family films are enjoying a second life.
It's also happening in Cagliari, where from October 18th to 20th, Home Movie Days returns , an annual event dedicated to the preservation, study, and promotion of private audiovisual memories. This unique event in Italy, now in its third year, will take place at the Cineteca Sarda and on the Zoom platform, engaging an international audience.
The event is promoted by Re-framing Home Movies Aps , a national association that has been working for years to transform the way we look at amateur films. Because those old Super 8 or 16mm films—seemingly marginal—actually hold precious traces of our past, both personal and collective.
"It's no longer a question of 'found footage' to be treated as orphaned material," explain curators Karianne Fiorini and Gianmarco Torri, "but of sources to be actively sought, catalogued, archived, and returned to the community."
Home Movie Days is divided into three main sections : Archival Practices, Not/Found/Footage, and Microstories. The program is dense and multifaceted, but follows a coherent thread: reflecting on how family films can become cultural resources, study materials, and creative tools.
The first section, scheduled each morning , is dedicated to the archiving models developed by major European institutions: from the Cineteca Basca to the Austrian Film Museum, to the newly established French platform Amorce, which already makes over 25,000 films available online. In the afternoon, Not/Found/Footage focuses on the narrative and reinterpretation of specific archives: those of the Cineteca Sarda, the Ton Anonymon Center in Athens, and the National Archives of Latvia.
Each day ends with Microstorie, an evening section that combines editorial presentations with thematic screenings .
Discussions will include Pietro Agnoletto's book From the Tourist's Gaze, filmmaker and archivist Ross Lipman's The Archival Impermanence Project, and the book 9.5mm Film and Participatory Media edited by Annamaria Motrescu-Mayes and Zoë Viney Burgess. Associated screenings range from the Greek-German documentary Super Paradise to period shorts by the legendary Sid Laverents.
Alongside the public meetings, the event also features a workshop on the digitization process of small-gauge films, led by Luca Portas. Among the highlights is Ross Lipman's masterclass with the evocative title: "The Restoration and Non-restoration of Home Movies and Small Gauge Film."
A critical exploration of restoration practices applied to amateur cinema: is it right to “improve” these materials, or is it more ethical to let them speak for themselves in their imperfection?
Completing the experience is a small but significant exhibition: "Amateur Film Equipment," which features cameras, projectors, and media used between 1923 and 1990. A journey into the materiality of memory.