Don’t miss this fes­ti­val ded­i­cat­ed to home movies

Before the advent of the ama­teur footage garbage dump known as YouTube, there exist­ed a hal­lowed form know as home movies. The term itself con­jures images of an overzeal­ous (and over­paid) father fig­ure wield­ing a cam­corder the size of a cement mix­er, LCD date­line in the top right-hand cor­ner, tap­ing fran­ti­cal­ly as the kids open their presents on Christ­mas day. Home movies – prop­er home movies – exist on VHS tapes, reels of film or new-fan­gled for­mats that died on impact (VCD any­one?). And, when done prop­er­ly, they can exert a strange pow­er over the viewer.

Nos­tal­gists, movie-lovers and any­one keen to catch up on poet­ic pri­vate moments of the rich and famous will want to mark 15 Octo­ber out in their diaries in order to cel­e­brate Home Movie Day. This annu­al, day-long fes­ti­val rolls into its 9^th year, allow­ing intrigued patrons to make a con­nec­tion between low-fi doo­dles and high art.

At the Lon­don event, which takes place at the Cin­e­ma Muse­um in Ken­ning­ton, cura­tors and archivists will be present to offer their exper­tise on footage that guests are invit­ed to bring along and, where pos­si­ble, dis­play. There will also be a chance to catch a selec­tion of home movies from the Bryan Forbes col­lec­tion, which cap­ture time-out with such celebri­ty chums as Peter Sell­ers, Michael Caine and Katharine Hep­burn, plus some of David Lean’s own home movies.

Though it could be seen as a day of wide-eyed fun and frol­ics, the pur­pose of Home Movie Day is to raise wider aware­ness of the impor­tance of film preser­va­tion and archiv­ing, as well as alert­ing peo­ple to the very real prospect that the dusty box sat in the attic could con­tain movie gold. Plus, if you haven’t been already, use this as your chance to vis­it the won­der­ful Cin­e­ma Muse­um, which is packed with all man­ner of sil­ver screen treasures.

Home Movie Day is on 15 Octo­ber. For all loca­tions across the globe, vis­it cen​ter​forhome​m​o​vies​.org/hmd