Athens, Ga. – National Home Movie Day 2012 will be celebrated locally Oct. 20 from 2-4 p.m. at the University of Georgia Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries. The UGA Libraries Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection will sponsor the event.
National Home Movie Day is a worldwide celebration of amateur films and filmmaking, held annually in October. The event provides an opportunity for attendees to bring in their home movies, learn more about their own family films, how to care for films and videotapes, and how home movies have helped capture personal history.
Home Movie Day is free and open to the public. There will be screenings of home movies from the media archives’ holdings, including from the earliest home movies made in Georgia (in 1917), as well as other home movies from Athens, around Georgia and throughout the Southeast.
Attendees are encouraged to bring films, videotapes and DVDs for inspection and screening when possible. Archivists will be in attendance to answer questions, according to Ruta Abolins, director of the media archives.
“If you have home movies on film or videotape that you are concerned about preserving, bring them to Home Movie Day,” Abolins said. “We will screen 16mm, regular 8mm and Super 8mm films, VHS videotapes and DVDs. Too many people see their home movies as just documenting their family; they don’t realize that home movies provide insight into family custom, lifestyle, landscape and history.”
The exhibit galleries for the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, the Russell Library for Political Research and Study and the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript will open for viewing. Free parking is available in UGA’s Hull Street parking deck.
For more information about Home Movie Day in Athens, contact Ruta Abolins at 706/542-4757. For more information about National Home Movie Day, see www.homemovieday.com.
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