Georgetown Gets Its Close-Up at the Super 8 Film Fest

Even if you didn't grow up in a time when the Kodak Super 8mm camera dominated the home-movie market, the film's gauzy quality lends itself to nostalgia, surreality, and memory. Through its lens, the most amateur, quotidian shots look like something beamed straight in from a dream or a picture book. Its portability makes it easy to transform minutiae of everyday life into something that feels cinematic.

On that tip, this weekend Sept. 11–12, the Georgetown Super 8 (GS8) will take over the Georgetown Steam Plant. Through its training program, GS8 puts Super 8 cameras in the hands of filmmakers — regardless of professional background — and sends them off into the world to create a movie of whatever they like. Over two days, they'll screen 61 movies filmed in the neighborhood by moviemakers of all stripes who, over the last several months, have turned their film fantasies into reality. GS8 also doles out awards — like Filmmaker's Choice, People's Choice, and Best Music Video — to add a fun, slightly competitive gloss to the weekend.

There are only three stipulations filmmakers must follow in order to get into GS8: Their films must be under three minutes and 20 seconds; all editing must be done in camera; and a majority of the film must be shot in or around the Duwamish River Valley. The result is a suite of movies that are roving, curious, and idiosyncratic, capturing a portrait of Georgetown and the surrounding area through the creativity and imagination of those who love and are inspired by it.

"Georgetown has always had a very strong arts community, and a lot of folks are still here," said Wynne Pei, interim executive director of GS8. "Because a lot of it takes place in Georgetown and South Park, the films highlight all the parks, all the bars, all the stores, all the streets."

As such, the films are as diverse as the neighborhood itself. In Jen Au's "Girl in the Mirror," scenes of a pair of lovers coming together and apart across the parks and beaches of the valley play against a narration of a relationship ending. A portal opens up when a woodland restoration worker finds a mysterious stone statue in the ground in Ben Shultz's excellently sci-fi "Long Buried." Georgetown's Shell gas station is transformed into a Persian oil field in "A Brief History of Regime Change in Iran" by Forrest Burke. And horror creeps into the mix with Paul Richard's "Yikes!" in which a man shares his ominous feelings with his mother in a phone call.

"There is this sort of unique nature to [Georgetown] that makes it a good backdrop for a lot of different creative weird ideas," said Laura Wright, founder of GS8. "It's funny how many people have the same shot or point of view in their film."

The program kicks off in the spring, when aspiring Super 8 filmmakers apply for the festival and pay a fee that covers the cost of film and processing, with a small portion going toward programming (there are scholarships and stipends for those who need them). Once accepted, the filmmakers attend a crash course on how to shoot and use Super 8 film cameras and receive guidance on their films throughout the production process.

"We have this group of filmmakers that just keep on coming back, and so they've actually developed their own skills and even started an AV club," said Pei. "They purchased lights and different tools to basically help them make films so they could share resources and everything."

Wright started the festival back in 2006. At the time, Wright said, Georgetown organizers were fighting off another garbage dump in the area and, noticeably, lacked a community center for people to gather at. Wanting to create something that brought people together to appreciate the beauty of the neighborhood, Wright went around with a sign-up sheet in Georgetown, asking if folks wanted to create movies on Super 8. Expecting 10 or so people to participate, they wound up with 33 films and about 200 people packed into the Georgetown Ballroom.

Over the years, GS8 has screened over 300 films with nearly 1,000 participants. Beyond literally getting people in a room together to admire art, the fest has served as a document of the ever-changing Duwamish River Valley, which has been home to rapid industrial development and immense change (though the neighborhood still doesn't have a community center, unfortunately). While Wright says GS8 receives submission inquiries from people in other neighborhoods and even from Europe, keeping the project centered in Georgetown is still of paramount importance.

"I went back and looked at the first six years of films, and it was such a document of the community in transition," said Wright. "I wanted to make sure that we were still adding to that. Even in a broader scope of the Duwamish Valley, there is a subtext that it is a record of a place that has gone through — in 20 years — just a massive transition."