Home Movies: A Celebration of Filmmaking

Join us for an evening of fun as we take a trip down memory lane while watching the intimate yet universal footage that comprise home movies and learn how to preserve your home movie treasures for generations to come. Or simply get a taste of what life was like a couple (or more) decades back.

Photojournalist and filmmaker Lou Dematteis, together with Paolo Simoni from the Italian Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia will transport you to times past with their touching home movie clips. For this occasion, the Metro Theatre Center Foundation will offer a preview of a rare 1931 color film showing a folk costume event in Naples, Italy.

This event is a collaborative effort between the IIC and the Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia (The Italian Amateur Film Archive). The archive was born in 2002, with the mission to collect and preserve amateur and family film, an audiovisual heritage that is still hidden and largely inaccessible. Founded and managed by the Home Movies Association, the Archive is a research group involved since 2002 in promoting and organizing the study, storage and upgrading of amateur and family film. Home Movies collects films that Italian families have made, with the aim of protecting the heritage they represent.

The Metro Theatre Center Foundation supports a wide range of arts and social issues through its grants and support programs. This includes a wide range of the arts, including filmmaking, theatre, individual grants to artists working on personal projects, as well as social issues such as endangered homeless youth and low-income seniors.

Support is provided by Rick Prelinger of Internet Archive and various people affiliated with Home Movie Day, a series of events held worldwide to showcase amateur films and filmmaking.