“Meet, Greet, and Donate”

1:00 pm

Donate your old 8mm or 16mm home movies that includes scenes of Florida! MDC Archives Director Rene Ramos and Wolfson Archives Curator Barron Sherer will be on hand to accept your invaluable vintage Florida images as a donation to the Lynn and Louis II Florida Moving Image Archives. Don’t forget to take a peek at a display of television news video chronicling the archive’s collection activities over the years.

 

"Recovered Memories: New Acquisitions" (Video, 45 minutes, Color, Black & White)

2:00 pm

Watch video screening of home movies recently acquired by the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives. See what's new in the archives' home movie collection! Curator Barron Sherer presents an intriguing and amusing selection of footage from home movies recently added to the collection. A regular feature of Home Movie Day in South Florida, this screening highlights Wolfson Archives' efforts to collect and preserve amateur films that record Florida history. The Archive has accepted home movie donations since its inception in 1986 and its collection of amateur films is recognized as one of the most significant in the United States. Featuring films donated by Margarita Cano, Beatrice Engel, Deenie and Louis Fine, Aida Guevara, Elizabeth Khoury Crocker, Susan Kerwit and others.

 

"My Father's Camera" (Karen Shopsowitz, 2000, 59 min., Video, Color, Black & White, English)

3:00 pm

When My Father’s Camera was awarded the George Foster Peabody Award in 2002, it was called an “innovative” film “which blends home movies with original production to explore the role of personal filmmaking in cinematic history.” This entertaining documentary demonstrates that home movies capture more than a family album on film. Director Karen Shopsowitz illustrates how the footage she includes from her father’s, amateur filmmaker Israel Shopsowitz, home movies reveals the world as seen “through his eyes.” For her, there is a connection between the concept of viewing the world through the camera to the capturing of a different context of history as recorded through the eyes of amateur filmmakers.

My Father’s Camera shows the high level of interest in amateur film. Interviews with archivists and filmmakers reveal the potential of home movies to provide viewers with a world view of historical moments from daily events. From black and white silent films to color movies, the audience begins to understand the value of images and now, for, as the director states, “images made by anyone matter.”

 

"Restorations, Impressions" (45 min., 16mm, Color, Black & White)

4:00 pm

Local historians and scholars, Dr. Paul George, Randall Robinson and Arva Moore Parks share their impressions of home movies and amateur films in real time during this special screening of preservation film prints from the archive vaults. Films selected for this program have received grants for restoration by local and national agencies such as the Miami-Dade Cultural Affairs Division, the American Film Institute, and the National Film Preservation Foundation. Featured, "A Trip To Miami Beach", 1941, "Miami-Havana", 1930-1932, and "Florida Scenes and the 1963 Orange Bowl."

"Living Room Cinema" (60 min., Video, Excerpts, Color, Black & White)

5:00 pm

Charming, entertaining, historic, and thought provoking, this presentation looks at life through the amateur lens. Hear commentary from filmmakers and family members, just like a real home movie get together! Living Room Cinema presents a groundbreaking compendium of films from Home Movie Day’s first years, revealing a range of amateur film as varied as the filmmakers behind the cameras and the subjects that filled their frames. Held annually since 2003, Home Movie Day has drawn volunteers in cities around the globe to set up projectors and invite people to see their home movies projected in a public venue.

Featured is Frank Di Franco’s “Home scenes, Boat ride and beauty parlor” a color regular 8mm record of a weekend trip up the Miami River in 1961.You’ll see beautiful, well filmed vacation scenes as tourist boats work on the river, the recently demolished Dupont Plaza Hotel, and shots of Di Franco’s incredibly upbeat employees working at his Alton Road beauty parlor.

 

For more information, email info@wolfsonarchive.org