Those once private home movies, almost purposefully forgotten, now physically fragile and technologically obsolete, have a new mission. Home movies reside in many archives, from historical societies and regional archives, to the Library of Congress, National Archives of Canada, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Media artists Alan Berliner, Rea Tajiri, and Daniel Reeves, among others, reprocess family film in their own work. However, access to these many forms of amateur footage is still limited. This is a great new book on the importance of amateur film footage.
Amateur creators are imaginative and varied.
Their economic resources and motivations differ widely. In traditional American families, with a division of labor across gender lines, the mother often holds the position of family cultural historian. The role of women as creators and transmitters of cultural histories is of great interest as we begin to recognize home movies' potency not only regarding private histories, but as primary source material for new understandings of our shared cultural history. Ten years ago I helped found Northeast Historic Film. Our archives holds many kinds of film and video made in and related to northern New England, ranging from silent dramas to political commercials.