Film Photography Needs Your Help

Even as we start to see signs that the decade of decline in film sales has bottomed out and may even be on the upswing it seems as film photographers we're still left holding our breath, waiting for the next announcement of yet another great emulsion that's being discontinued, hoping none of our favourites will be the next one to go. But the time is long gone when demand for film was driven merely by hold-outs. Everybody who planned to trade in their film equipment for digital did it years ago, and still the demand is there. So why does the dire news seem to keep coming?

Much of the problem goes back to production economics. When you have a factory built to produce billions of rolls per year in a market demanding only millions of rolls per year it often makes more sense to shut down production rather than try to run at a small fraction of capacity.  The comfort film photographers long for of knowing the film they use is here to stay comes from having a production capacity in line with the reality of today's market. Arguably black and white photographer's have that in Ilford, but as Kodak continues its heroic struggles to right-size its production and film is a mere sideline for Fuji it seems like no colour emulsion is safe. In particular, Fuji is now the only manufacturer still making slide film, and while they make a couple of great ones, E-6 shooters must live with the fact that they are just a corporate decision away from having their supplies cut off.

On to this stage comes a one-time historic opportunity for the cause of film photography. The once defunct Italian film manufacturer Ferrania has risen once more, but has only a limited amount of time to recover the portion of its mothballed production it needs to put together that right sized production capability to become a new stable supplier in the market. That machinery isn't part of Ferrania's current facilities however, it lies in government owned factory buildings which are slated for demolition only months from now.

Here's where you come in. To raise the capital needed to recover the machinery Ferrania has launched a new Kickstarter project. For more details on the project please visit their Kickstarter page. You can contribute and also register to be one of the first to receive these highly anticipated Ferrania products. The project is already more than halfway to its goal. Don't let the chance to be a part of bringing this critical asset to the future of film photography slip by.