Nanofest

gathering of a film crevice community

Abstract

Analogue film communities organised around artist-run labs are “crevice communities” existing and growing in the fissures of larger corporate and mainstream modes of film production. They emerge from the discarded debris of once valued constituents of industrial cinema-making. By picking up, interrogating and re-energising this rejected film equipment, analogue film communities carve a defiant space within a technological juggernaut. This article discusses and documents my experience as a filmmaker at an annual analogue film workshop and festival known as Nanofest, held at Nanolab, an independent film lab in Daylesford, regional Victoria. The event is hosted by the founding members of Artist Film Workshop (AFW), a vibrant, diverse community of film artists working out of Naarm/Melbourne. Crevice communities situated around intensely physical analogue film practices, share technical knowledge and processes to extend and develop their individual craft. Working with analogue practices in the digital age signals more than a simple delineation between mediums. It is an important act of resistance to digital ubiquity. Artists and their communities who work with analogue film are in a unique position to critique and provide an alternative to the increasingly homogenous, technological cloud-based world.