San Diego home movie enthusiasts are encouraged to dust off their Super-8, 8 mm & 16 mm home movies and bring them on down to the 6th Annual Home Movie Day on Saturday, Oct. 18, from 2 to 5 p.m. Refreshments will be served at this free event, which will take place from 2 to 5 p.m. at UC San Diego’s Geisel Library in the Seuss Room. Film drop-off begins at 1 p.m.

“This is an event that gets film lovers and archivists around the world out of the vaults to help the public learn about, enjoy, and rescue films forgotten with the advent of home video,” said Lia Friedman,a librarian with the UCSD Arts Library. “Home movies are mystery, memory, nostalgia and history all contained on a tiny reel--invaluable snippets of time that can be shared generation after generation.”

Home movies from the UCSD Arts Library’s Film & Video Collection will be screened at the event, along with movies brought in by participants. In addition, assessments of older films will be offered, along with information about how to care for family films and continuous screenings of home movies. Archivists will show examples of historic amateur films preserved in UCSD Arts Library collections, and preservation specialists will explain why transferring films to video or digital media does not mean these new copies will last forever.

Home Movie Day was started in 2002 by a group of film archivists concerned about what would happen to all the home movies shot on film during the 20th century.  Since then, Home Movie Day has grown into a worldwide celebration of amateur films, during which people in cities and towns all over the world meet their local film archivists and find out about the archival advantages of film over video and digital media. Home Movie Day, which celebrated its fifth anniversary on Aug. 11, 2007, is coordinated as a project of the Center for Home Movies, a registered 501(c)(3) public benefit corporation.

Parking on the UCSD campus is free on weekends. Click here for directions.

For specific driving directions, click here (just enter in your starting address at the bottom for detailed directions to campus).

For more information, contact Lia Friedman (858) 822-2784 / lgfriedman@ucsd.edu