As much as you might dig that Super 8 app on your iPhone, there’s still no real substitute for celluloid. See for yourself on Saturday (October 19) when the Centre for Digital Media (577 Great Northern Way) brings Home Movie Day to Vancouver for the first time since 2005. A worldwide event, Home Movie Day was begun in 2002 by a collective of film archivists intent on preserving small-format film.

Vancouver event organizer Christine Hagemoen encourages people to dig out those reels from the broom closet and bring them down. “It’s an outreach to the public to make them aware of their own audio-visual heritage,” Hagemoen told the Georgia Straight, explaining that the event includes a clinic to inspect and recommend best practices for storage and copy.

More to the point, viewing these unvarnished windows into the past never fails to fascinate. “Distance makes you appreciate things a bit more,” Hagemoen said. “In 1970, somebody’s trip to England might have been boring, but if you look at that movie now…It’s just so beautiful to see what’s out there. I personally like looking at other people’s stuff. It reveals so much about them and their history and just the community in general.” Or, as John Waters puts it on the HMD website, “There’s no such thing as a bad home movie.…If you’ve got one, whip it out and show it now.” More information at www.homemovieday.com/index.html