The Industry Is Dead So Cinema Is Free

This is a selection from the independently produced feature film "The Industry Is Dead So Cinema Is Free". The film documents visits to artist-run film labs and experimentations with learned techniques, exploring analog filmmaking in the digital era by using a Bolex and digital camera in its production. It combines digital scans of hand processed 16mm film that was shot on the way to each lab with artist interviews. The first excerpt below, features an interview with filmmaker MM Serra, where we experiment with the ‘Phytogram’ film processing technique developed by filmmaker, Karel Doing, and taught to me in 2020 when visiting the lab, Film In Process, that was then operating out of the University of East London. The second excerpt was hand-developed with Christopher Gorski at the Artist-run Film Lab, Analogefilmwerke, in Hamburg, Germany. This expired roll of 200T double perforated film was shot at half exposure while visiting the Artist-run Film Lab, Atelier MTK, in Grenoble, France and then, reloaded into the Bolex and exposed again while traveling from Grenoble to Hamburg in January 2020. At Analogefilmwerke Chris and I experimented with a reversal processing technique. Lastly, this page includes two digitally scanned 16mm film stills that were hand processed film at MTK., the second image being an experimental contact print of the first.

Please follow the link to read 'Do It Yourself: Artist-run Film Labs in the Age of Digital Media", the written ethnographic research that accompanies this film.

In the future this project will be added to and turned into a web doc. Email mqraspanti@gmail.com with any questions.