Projecting
Towards a Possible Future is a presentation of the outcome of a first
research-based collection on analogue film practice in Beirut. Filmmakers Siska
(Beirut / Berlin) and Philip Widmann (Berlin) gathered information on the
former Kodak laboratory for Super 8 and 16mm films that was shut down during
the civil war. This glimpse into the infrastructure of private film production
in Lebanon aimed at a possible re-installation of a film laboratory for amateur
formats in Beirut. Drawing on models of self-organized, artist-run and
non-profit laboratories for hand-processing and experimenting with Super 8 and
16mm existing in Europe, the Americas, and Asia, Projecting Towards a Possible
Future was an exploration of the possibilities to create a space in Beirut for
the work with film as handicraft. The presentation includes private photography
collection from the x-labors of the company, voice interviews, super 8 hand
processed material and photographic material featuring the destruction of the
Kodak film Laboratory and the ruins of the modernist villa of Studio Baalbeck
the one and only Lebanese production house from the 60’s that was the pillar of
the development of the Lebanese film history and was shot down during the civil
war. This visit into the tragical history of both amateur and professional film
production in Beirut came at a time when the Kodak industrial economic crisis
worldwide was growing due to the digital era replacing analogue industry. Some
of the workers in the old Kodak film laboratory described the “Kodak days” as
“the silver halide-days” whilst showing us their first training trips with
Kodak to the United States.
