DYNACHROME 40, IN GALICIA

While restoring and digitising in 4K a series of Super-8 films belonging to a Galician family —a collection that spans from the late 1960s to the end of the 1980s— I have once again been reminded that working with photochemical film is never a routine task, but rather an archaeological exercise in which, reel after reel, unexpected discoveries appear that justify every hour spent cleaning, repairing and scanning material that, in many cases, has not passed through a projector for decades.

The films are, in general, very well shot. One can see that the person behind the camera knew what he was doing: steady framing, careful exposure, even occasional titles and, in some reels, laminated magnetic sound.

The condition, however, is another matter entirely. Dirt, scratches, broken perforations, splices of doubtful quality —including, to my astonishment, some splices made with ordinary adhesive paper— remind us that home movies, unlike professional productions, rarely enjoyed the care they deserved.

Film come with splices made with adhesive paper!!!

The surprise came while inspecting, against the light, the reel of a wedding filmed in 1970. Among the familiar translucent tone of Kodachrome triacetate, I suddenly noticed something different: about fifteen metres of polyester stock, unmistakable for its slightly different reflection.

Dynachrome polyester in the middle of Kodachrome triacetate

My first thought was that it had to be Fujichrome Single-8, which was always manufactured on polyester base. But when I examined the edge markings more carefully, the result was completely unexpected.

It was Dynachrome, in Super-8. And not only Dynachrome —but Dynachrome in an astonishing state of preservation.

Checking film after redone splices

The colours are practically perfect. Skin tones remain warm and natural, with that slightly ruddy complexion so characteristic of northern families, reproduced with a fidelity that one finds only in Kodachrome films. There is no visible fading, no colour shift, no loss of density. It is, quite simply, as if the film had been shot yesterday.

This is the first time in my life that I encounter a Dynachrome reel. Probably is the only one in Galicia. The explanation of the perfect colours lies in its very nature. Like Kodachrome, and like Fujichrome of that same era, Dynachrome was a non-substantive colour process, meaning that the dyes were not formed within the emulsion itself but introduced during processing, resulting in an image of extraordinary stability.

Photo with the mobile of the projection screen

When such emulsions are combined with a polyester base —immune to vinegar syndrome and mechanically far more stable than triacetate— the word permanence ceases to be a metaphor and becomes a technical reality.

What I held in my hands, therefore, was not just another home movie, but a fragment of time preserved with a durability that its original filmmaker could never have imagined. Moments of a Galician family, filmed more than half a century ago, surviving today with colours intact, on a strip of polyester that will very likely outlive all of us.

Photo with the mobile of projection screen

Discoveries like this make the long hours of restoration worthwhile.
They remind us that photochemical film, when properly made, properly processed and, even by chance, reasonably preserved, is still the most faithful witness of memory ever invented.

This Dynachrome 40, found almost by accident in a wedding reel from 1970, is not only a technical curiosity. It is, quite literally, a small cinematic document for the history of Galicia.