IN FRONT OF THE LAST KODAK IN TOWN (S8 vertical shortmovie with English subtitles)

IN FRONT OF THE LAST KODAK IN TOWN ("Frente al último Kodak” is the original title in Spanish) is a short FILM essay (four minutes and twelve seconds) about the first Zara store in the world, which stood opposite the last Kodak illuminated sign in La Coruña until January 30, 2026.

Through an everyday walk (one of those walks that seem to matter little and end up meaning everything), the film reflects on urban memory, childhood, and permanence.

GENESIS OF THE PROJECT.

“Frente al último Kodak” was born in late January, just days before the definitive closure of that historic store which, for half a century, had been both a street corner and a symbol, located at the intersection of Juan Flórez and Avenida de Arteixo, opposite another classic of the city: Foto Loly. Its Kodak sign has its own small epic story — some years ago drunken vandals smashed it, and the shop had it painstakingly rebuilt by a craftsman sign-maker, regardless of cost, as one might restore a fragment of memory.

That spatial coincidence — the first Zara facing the last Kodak — was the trigger, but also the metaphor.

What began as a pang of sadness at losing something that had formed part of many people’s lives for fifty years, and had been the seed of a textile empire, migrated into film and ultimately became a work narrated in an extradiegetic voice, in which the protagonist crosses the street, enters, remembers, observes, and almost inadvertently witnesses the quiet end of an era.

PLUS-8: A SUPER 8 TALLER THAN WIDE.

“Frente al último Kodak” was shot in Plus-8, an experimental vertical format developed specifically for this project. Personally, I prefer wider formats to taller ones, but current trends favor this taller-than-wide format, popularized by social media. Phil Vigeant (ASC), a world-renowned professional and owner of  PRO 8MM in Los Angeles, believes this format has a future, and I agree with him (for certain uses).

The Plus-8 system consists of using a 1950s anamorphic lens rotated 90 degrees, allowing for a taller-than-wide image (1:1.5) starting from the classic academic Super 8 ratio (1.33:1). The camera thus remains in its natural position, avoiding the more rudimentary solution tested by some in the United States — physically rotating the entire camera — and making possible both editing on a conventional moviola and direct projection of a reversal original simply by rotating the projection anamorphic lens 90 degrees.

Little P2 with tiny Iscomorphot vertical anamorphic

Plus-8 is not a digital trick, but an optical and mechanical solution.

Although there have been previous vertical Super 8 tests, there are no completed works applying this new format integrally to a finished film, and even less so using the anamorphic solution of Plus-8. “Frente al último Kodak” is therefore a pioneering work, demonstrating that Super 8, at over sixty years old, does not belong to the past but to a persistent modernity — one capable of engaging with contemporary formats without renouncing the materiality of film grain.

Plus-8: traditional editing is possible

A LIGHTWEIGHT SHOOT.

Ignacio usually films with his Fuji ZC1000 equipped with larger and heavier optics. However, having recently suffered from osteoporosis and fractured vertebrae, he opted for an almost ascetic solution: a diminutive Fuji P2, the smallest and lightest Super 8 camera, fitted with a 1950s Iscomorphot anamorphic lens, resulting in a setup weighing just over 300 grams.

The lightness was not only physical, but conceptual: less equipment, more gaze.

The stock used was the extremely grainy Kodak Vision 500, taken from leftover footage from a test Ignacio carried out for Phil Vigeant of PRO 8MM, in collaboration with Kodak’s motion picture division. The Super 8 film was manually transferred in a darkroom into reloadable Single-8 cartridges — the system compatible with Fuji cameras — in what was almost an alchemical process of adaptation.

Super-8 film loaded in Single-8 cartridges

PROCESSING AND SCANNING.

Due to maintenance work on the JoBo machine in Ignacio’s own lab, the film was processed altruistically by RetroLab Cinema (Málaga), whose director, Juan Carlos Olivo, has shared both a professional and personal friendship with Ignacio for decades. Interestingly, Juan Carlos operates the same MMT telecine systems developed by another mutual friend, Martin M. Ten, thus closing a circle of analog complicities.

AN UNORTHODOX WORKING METHOD.

As is often the case in these projects, the script does not precede the shoot — it follows it.

Ignacio works from loosely sketched ideas formed in his imagination and transmitted to the performer — his regular collaborator Javier Suárez — before filming. After processing, he edits the material together with his right-hand man Álex López, and only then writes the final text, almost always conceived as an extradiegetic narration, where the voice does not describe the image but accompanies and questions it.

A FILM WITH TWO VERSIONS: THE MEANING OF A “VOLUNTARY CENSORSHIP”.

Once the film was completed, and without altering its duration or a single word of the voice-over, Ignacio slightly modified the final cut. Scenes in which customers or employees could be recognized inside the store were removed. When eliminating a shot would have disrupted the rhythm, Álex digitally intervened, blurring the recognizable figures frame by frame — not as an external imposition, but as a personal decision.

Recording a moment for memory is not the same as exposing it without limits.

The original photochemical version remains intact in the archive — perhaps to be declassified fifty years from now. The public version, respectful of privacy, does not alter the structure or emotional core of the film. It is not a renunciation, but a form of care; because even artistic documentary must know where the frame ends and responsibility begins.

VIEWING RECOMMENDATIONS, WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES!

“Frente al último Kodak” has been conceived primarily for vertical viewing on mobile devices. On Vimeo, activating “full screen” (the four-arrow icon) is recommended. English subtitles are available and can be activated via CC.

AVAILABLE TODAY ON VIMEO.

Today, Friday, February 27, the short film ceases to be a project and becomes a shared work.

Beyond its local anecdote, it speaks of something universally recognizable: the places we believe to be eternal and that, without warning, disappear; the corners that sustain our personal biographies; the paradox of what endures and what fades away.

FRENTE AL ÚLTIMO KODAK is now available on Vimeo.

Thank you to everyone who has accompanied this process.