MISERABLE FUJIFILM. FUJINSTAX SHOULD BE ITS NEW BRAND

Fujifilm, despite incorporating the word FILM into its brand, has abandoned the world of motion picture film in 2012, leaving orphans to filmmakers looking for their color palette, different from Kodak's, for certain projects, as well as depriving us of the wonderful Fujichrome R25N reversal film with a polyester base, the ideal film base for long-term archive.

For a few years Fujifilm followed manufacturing film emulsions for photography, both negative (color and black and white) and reversal (the beautiful Velvia and the excellent Provia) and the Instax instant range. Fujifilm continued to supply 35mm raw reversal film to Retro Enterprises to re-perforate and load into Single-8 motion film cartridges. The owner of Retro Enterprises spent a huge investment in a cutting and reperforating machine: this allowe to continue alive to the Single-8 system, which, it must be remembered, was the Troy horse that served for the introduction of the Japanese firm in countries like Spain, Holland or Germany, when it was totally unknown by the market. But suddenly, in 2018, Fujilfilm refused to serve up any more raw film in big 35 mm rolls! 

Investigations carried out very discreetly in Japan (as Fujifilm is a firm distinguished by its secrecy), revealed that Fujifilm, after manufacturing a stock for keep in refrigerated storage in the factory, had stopped manufacturing film forever (except for the lucrative Instax; the previous CEO linked the word FILM to FUJI trying to avoid what the accountants already wanted to have done in 2010 and now they have achieved. A pity. There's nothing more difficult than manufacturing quality colour reversal film: you need technology of 19th century with 20th century technology and clean 21st century ingredients. Only Fujifilm and Kodak can do it. All this legacy is lost for Japan).

The manufactured Fujifilm stock would be enough to supply the market until 2024. But the demand was higher than expected and, in 2022, my favorite slide film for landscape was exhausted: Fujichrome Velvia 50. The few 35 mm cartridges left in my fridge, with an expiration date of March 2024 --they can last longer, in the freezer, as I demonstrated with the Fortia-, they are the latest of the latest: there are no more. As for the negative film, Neopan Across, currently it is not made by Fujfilm but by an English manufacturer, and as colour negatives films are running out of stock, new films with the Fujifilm brand are made by an American manufacturer! Guess who? Fujifilm is only keeping Instax film production open, a very profitable and growing market

Fujifilm: a miserable company, only interested in big profits. How can a company that makes so much profits in other fields abandon the technology that gives meaning to its brand, betraying to  millions of film creators around the world?