2012 Event Report
City: Washington D.C.
Event Venue: National Building Museum
Event time (screening): 11-2
Event time (inspection): same
Total Audience: 38
Number of people bringing films: 10
Films screened by Gauge:
8mm: 6
Super 8: 4
16mm: 4
Video: We had a TV on one side of the room showing a compilation of amateur films from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, showing films from before WWII, during occupation, and then during the liberation.
Volunteers: 11 total
Laura Major, Osheen Keshishian, Rebecca Reynolds, and Scott Mueller (ColorLab), Andrew Cassidy-Amstutz, Christina Meninger, Ameena Mohammed (MARAC), Lindsay Zarwell (USHMM), Deborah Sorensen (NBM), Brian Real (UMD, College Park)
Special events/screenings: (just the screening on the monitor of the USHMM material)
Press (pre-event and post-event): Beforehand we were mentioned in The Washingtonian and afterward we got a write-up in the MD student writer’s blog
Report submitted by Caitlin McGrath
We had a great selection of films this year, including footage of our very own Dwight Swanson! (there was a big cheer when he appeared on screen!)
We started with a 16mm b/w film Laura brought of the 2004 Orphans Film Festival, where Dwight was spotted, along with a whole host of other film folks. It was a great way to kick off the event – to see all these people responsible for making Home Movie Day happen, as if they were joining us.
Then we watched a snippet of a film by H. Lee Waters (Laura)
I brought three home movies from 1975 of my parents before they were parents and my great-grandparents. We just recently got these transferred, not knowing what was on them, and I got to share them with my grandmother last month. It was the first time she’d ever seen her parents on film.
Eli brought some fantastic films his father had made, from the 1950s, including a great cruise to San Juan, Martinique, and Grenada. The cruise was taken by his parents, Morton and Lila Savada.
2nd reel was thanksgiving dinner, Nov. 22, 1973 at his family home in Harrison NY, followed by the Dec. 19, 1973 50th wedding anniversary of his grandparents, David and Celia Perless, at Keen’s Restaurant, NYC.
Osheen’s parents’ wedding in 1956 in Beirut, Lebanon. Very cool – she had an amazingly wide-skirted gorgeous wedding dress!
Pam Wintle brought some 8mm (in 9.5 cans, curiously) that she’d never seen projected before. They turned out to be some beautiful snowy scenes from Skowhegan, Maine.
Lindsay Zarwell shared some great amateur films from the USHMM as well as one of her own – a 1975 family film with her baby brother wearing a cute IZOD outfit that her mother (Lindsay’s) had just passed on to Lindsay for her own kids to wear. (Which she didn’t realize until seeing the film! She says the outfit is a bit more faded now than on the film J)
There was a trip on the Silver Meteor train from Philadelphia to Sarasota. (Caitlin)
Osheen shared some screen tests he made on B/W reversal in 2011 of some friends. Great to have some “newer” home movies in the mix.
One of our visitors from last year brought his films again, including the fantastic Guitar at the Bottom of the Sea, about a possessed guitar that attacks a hapless youth on the beach.
Then we finished up with a real treat – a 16mmof the 1939 San Francisco World’s Fair. Rebecca brought it, and wasn’t sure if we should screen it, but Deborah Sorensen (who curated a show at the National Building Museum last year on the 30s world’s fairs) and I jumped up and down when it started. Deborah was able to narrate the whole thing, which was fantastic and the color was amazing – especially in the night sequences. Complete with fireworks – couldn’t have asked for a better ending.
Thanks so much to everyone who volunteered! We were thrilled with such a great turn-out and such fabulous films!