Recursos

Movie families

Conference and screening

Venue: Municipal Archive of Girona.

The Centre for Image Research and Dissemination (CRDI) of Girona City Council commemorates this year the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage with two events related to the centenary of home and amateur filmmaking: a conference about home movies kept at the CRDI and a screening of original films in 8mm and Super-8 formats.

In 1923, two film projectors were launched that brought cinematographic creation closer to the general public: the Pathé Baby's 9.5mm format, and the Eastman Kodak's 16mm format. Both used cellulose acetate as a support for the films, a material that did not have the serious flammability problems that celluloid films had. This type of material known as "safety film" was widely used in amateur and home filmmaking.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of those inventions and, to commemorate it, we want to pay tribute to those who used movie cameras to record images of family life.

1. Movie families. The beach, the children and the table set

Conference

Venue: Municipal Archive of Girona.

Day and time: Tuesday, October 24 at 19h

Conference about home movies kept at the CRDI, by Pau Saavedra, CRDI audiovisual archivist.

The so-called home movies are an invaluable source to know what people's life was like in the private sphere at a certain time. In this kind of movies we find a series of common characteristics, both in terms of technical aspects and narrative discourse. In relation to the former, they are usually not edited and in most cases they don't have a soundtrack. As for the narrative discourse, it is characterized by a lack of planning and it is conditioned by the fact that the consumers of these films are the same people who star in them.

Although each movie reflects the particular interests of its authors, there is a common objective: to leave testimony of family life. This turn into recurring themes that are present in most of these collections: children, Christmas at home, baptisms and communions, excursions to the beach, major festivals or religious festivities such as Easter or Corpus Christi.

The CRDI preserves 700 home movies dated between the 1920s and 1980s of the last century, in 9.5mm, 8mm, Super-8 and 16mm formats. The oldest dates from 1926 (Josep Pérez Tolsanas collection), that is, from few years after the appearance of home movie cameras, and the most modern from the late 1980s, when magnetic video tape definitively replaced film as the main medium for recording moving images.

2. Movie families. Home films screening

Screening.

Venue: Girona History Museum.

Day and time: Friday, October 27 at 17h

Screening of the original home films collected in the campaign launched by CRDI in June.

The Centre for Image Research and Dissemination (CRDI) of Girona City Council has launched a campaign to bring out the home filmography that is kept in the drawers and closets of many homes.

At the CRDI we have verified that there are families that still have 8 mm and Super-8 film, but they do not have the chance to see them, because they do not have the projectors to do so. For this reason, we propose to all those who want to see these images that they come to the Girona History Museum, where on October 27 there will be a public screening of the movies that each one freely wishes to show. The event also aims to discover new records that become part of the historical heritage of our city and its surroundings.