Ektachrome returns & 8 Fest this weekend

2017 brings with it exciting news, including Kodak's announcement of bringing back Ektachrome in Super 8 form! Very exciting, but much like the camera they announced at CES last year, we'll hold our collective breaths until we can hold them in our hands.

As Sundance and Slamdance close up their festivals, there's a little festival in Toronto dedicated to this small gauge formats that celebrating it's 10th anniversary.

Congratulations to the organizers of the 8 Fest for providing a great showcase for small gauge films for all these years, and being dedicated to showing these films in their original formats.

Over the years, the 8 fest has done a tremendous job of featuring many films from past OTS8 events from across the country.

This year, I am deeply humbled (and slightly terrified) to have been selected as the Canadian Spotlight Artist. It's been a very interesting process looking at my past films and having them curated into a program. A few of my past one take films made the list. It's been nice revisiting them again. But there are quite a few films I have never shown publicly before, and this was a good motivation to get them ready for the big screen for their premieres. It's hard to believe that a couple of the films are close to 20 years old already.

The benefit of being a part of OTS8 events is that I was able to share the anxiety with a group of 20+ filmmakers, and only had to bear responsibility for my 3 minutes (good or bad). But having 19 of my films play back to back is a real departure from my comfort zone.

In any case, my thanks to the organizers of the 8 fest for being such great supporters of the OTS8 and if you happen to be in Toronto this weekend, please check out this festival, it's one of a kind and totally worth it.

VOTE FOR Red is Dead at SLAMDANCE

Great news from a past One Take Super 8 Event participant:

Dianne Ouellette's film Red is Dead (originally called Dog Tales), screened silent at the One Take Super 8 Event in Regina in 2013. A year later she finished the film with a soundtrack (and the new title).

Kodak celebrated 50 years of super 8 in 2015, and Dianne submitted her film as part of Super 8 Filmmaking Challenge. The film has made it to the finals of the online contest through the Audience Choice Awards.  There were over 500 entries from around the world and people could vote for the films that they liked.   

Red is Dead came in second in the Flashback category, therefore in the final 15 films that have been invited to screen at the Slamdance Film Festival at a special Kodak screening. Out of the top 15 films Dianne needs to be voted into the top 3 to win a cool camera and some super 8 film kits. Dianne is going to attend the screening at the Slamdance Film Festival which takes place on January 25.  

Red is Dead is the only Canadian in the top 15 super 8 films as well.

You can check out the embedded video below (or click here for a HD version).

Voting starts January 19 and you can vote every day up until the screening on January 25th. So, that's 7 votes per person.

Here is the link where you will be able to start voting on January 19th

Please vote for Dianne (and OTS8 Filmmaking!!) and spread the word.