Dedicated to exploring, extending, and supporting the use of analog motion picture film as an artistic medium, and promoting an evolving aesthetic of film based in collaborative experimentation that further expands film techniques and artistic possibilities.
The Handmade Film Institute was founded in 2003 to promote and preserve analog motion picture filmmaking as a viable artistic medium. By embracing and sharing the fundamental technical knowledge that underpins the work of individual filmmakers and film artists, we seek to reconceive and to some extent redesign the medium so that it can be perpetuated as an environmentally, personally, and socially responsible means of artistic production.
As a unique, highly developed and richly beautiful medium, filmmaking has a long and storied history of ongoing creative innovation and technical refinement that can no longer be taken for granted against the evolving landscape of digital commercial technology. HMFI has been a leader navigating the transition from commercial to small-scale artistic film production, offering intensive educational retreats and workshops to artists, filmmakers, and educators in diverse locations including Colorado, Washington, California, British Columbia, Great Britain, the Netherlands, France, and Jamaica.