KODAK & ZARA

Foto Loly, the only independent shop that sells Kodak products in my city, La Coruña (in the NorthWest of Spain), is located right in front of the first Zara store in the world, on Juan Flórez street, from which Amancio Ortega started the INDITEX empire from zero 30 years ago. In this emblematic place can be found one of the only two Kodak backlits signs in the city.  In the three decades that Kodak's backlit sign has been there, the formerly "yellow colossus", from being the yellow giant and a star value on Wall Street, has almost gone into irrelevance to the general public, just the opposite of Zara (Inditex): and they are separated by only one street!

I was shooting here early this month, for my shortmovie COVID CHRISTMAS, with the Fujica ZC1000 loaded with AGFA Aviphot 200 poliester film. Cartridges are now in the post in the way to Rome, Italy, for the processing by Riccardo Pascucci.

COVID CHRISTMAS , the shooting.

This rainy and sad Christmas season, when I left work daily, around six in the afternoon, on the days that it was not raining, I was shooting different parts of my city, with hand-held camera, with a colour film that some say is very bad , the reversible AGFA Aviphot in polyester.

In my opinion, there is no bad film, but all color rendering and grain has its use for a certain purpose of the story to shoot. For "COVID Christmas" I chose the sad colors, and the coarse grain, of the Aviphot, to reflect the saddest Christmas I can remember, without joy, with merchants and shops almost in bankrupt and many people with diminished income. 

Film will be processed by Riccardo Pascucci in Rome. Camera was my beloved Fujica ZC1000 mostly with the small Fujinon 5.5 mm EBC wideangle lens, but with some takes with the standard 7.5-75 mm lens.

In the series of short films called "COVID", each type of film stock, as usual in my filmography, is part of the language. The intimacy of family life, with strongly outdated Kodak Vision-2 500, in "COVID-19 Phase O" (during lockdown, the family life and values like solidarity were reinforced, with homemade faceshields to give away for free in ambulatory health centers. While the hypochondriac freelancer drives to work, he hears the coronavirus symptoms in the radio... that make him feel sick!)

COVID-19 PHASE 0 from IB CINEMA Motion Picture Films on Vimeo.

The vivifying colours of Kodak Vision 50, for "COVID-19 Phase III", shot in June 2020 when we already believed that the nightmare was over and life returned to normal. How wrong we were!

COVID-19 PHASE III from IB CINEMA Motion Picture Films on Vimeo.