Super 8 demands!

"We are not a Super 8 Film Festival. We are a SUPERB short film festival where the films are shot in Super 8“, says Simon Mullen, filmmaker and one of the extremely enthusiastic organisers of the 2nd Cambridge International Super 8 Film Festival, the UK’s only Super 8 festival featuring over 80 films, including 20 World Premieres and 70 UK Premieres.

Meeting Mullen and fellow organiser Thierry Bonnaud ahead of the festival Local Secrets found out a little more about the festival opening Thursday 24th April. In skinny jeans and with big black glasses Mullen’s every utterance sounds like he’s been inhaling helium. Anybody who’s been to one of the regular Super 8 events will recognise his high pitched cry of “yay” for all things Super 8. Together with Bonnaud, and the other members of the Cambridge Super 8 group, Mullen believes and declares excitedly that “...the films are absolutely superb because Super 8 demands film making craftsmanship".

Bonnaud an initially laconic Frenchman living in Cambridge seems the opposite of Mullen until he starts to talk about Super 8. Swiftly building in momentum he soon begins to out-talk even Mullen. “I thought a town like Cambridge deserves to have something like a festival dedicated to short film”.

Super 8 film is back in a big way. The smaller cousin to the current standard format used for projecting cinema films – 35mm – Super 8 has experienced a renaissance in recent years with the advent of digital film editing on personal computers. The popularity of Super 8 is that as an image it looks better than video formats such as DV “With film, when shot correctly, you can see stuff in the shadows – it looks beautiful”. But although an old analogue format has been revived the boom comes partially from modern technology. “The paradox is that for a typical workflow for a Super 8 film maker is that they shoot on Super 8 and then develop it and transfer it to a computer”. Just as email revived the art of letter writing so too has cine-camera filmmaking been reborn.

All the Cambridge Super 8 Film Festival organisers are Super 8 film makers who simply decided to put on their own film festival. This gives the festival a distinctly different air to the more common type of film festival generally programmed by arts organisations or exhibitors.

To give an example of what exactly Mullen means when he says “craftsmanship” one film called ‘Everything but…’ by Cambridge group member Colin Dewar is simply outstanding. Imagine a simple cigarette butt lying discarded in a road near the Grafton Centre in Cambridge. Then zoom in towards the butt an impossible distance before moving on to a short animation detailing the production history of a cigarette. Factories and container ships roll past before the shot zooms back out to an infinite network of interconnections. Then we’re back to that lonely butt in a residential street.

Nothing too exciting compared to your average multiplex action film until you find out that it was shot for nothing on Super 8 film for something called Straight 8. One cartridge, no editing. Everything was filmed in succession and the filmmaker didn’t see the result until the premiere! To do this kind of thing under these conditions redefines the concept of innovation and is mind-boggling frankly. Inspired by an IBM short film from the 1970s called Power of 10 Director Colin Dewar had to create his own motorised rig for the camera before painstakingly shooting the project over several months. All without knowing how it would look. And this kind of thing is exactly what makes the Super 8 scene fascinating.

Cambridge sprang from the city’s Super 8 group who decided to host a Saturday night festival at Strawberry Fair in 2007. After that they realised that they could go further. “It was so successful that we decided that we’ve got to continue this - We wanted to do it and then suddenly the option appeared!” This year the festival operates out of the University Social Club on Mill Lane.

With a competition offering some very attractive prizes for the winners this year’s festival promises to be a lively affair showing some great films. Of particular interest is the industry panel meeting on Saturday 26th April entitled “Super 8 in the 21st Century”.

In some bizarre alignment of the planets which Mullen and Bonnaud comically put down to ley lines one of Cambridge’s twin cities, Szeged in Hungary, also has a thriving Super 8 community with its own dedicated festival. After the Cambridge group visited Szeged, the Hungarians are returning the favour and turning out in force in Cambridge next week. Watch out in for the Super 8 Acrobat Group who perform live stunts alongside projections of their films. 

A passing comment from Bonnaud sums up the enduring appeal of Super 8 film.  “If you lose Super 8, you will lose 16mm, therefore you will lose 35mm”. It’s all to play for and it’s taking place right here in Cambridge.

Article by David Perilli, image (1) of Lady White - shown on Saturday 26th April at 7pm, (2) of Angel Recovered - shown on Thursday 24th April at 8pm.