The Dallas Observer is headed to the big screen. "Analogue People in a Digital World," a short documentary produced in collaboration with filmmaker duo Daniel Driensky and Sarah Reyes, is one of eight short films that will screen at Studio Movie Grill on Sunday, Oct. 8, as part of the Documentary Short Block of Dallas Videofest.
The film accompanied a February cover story by several Observer culture writers — Alaena Hostetter, Mollie Jamison, Nicholas Bostick and Rachel Williams — about local photographers who are using old-fashioned and unusual methods to produce pictures in an age when digital technology has provided cheap and easy alternatives.
The 11-minute film takes you into the workspaces of Frank Lopez, a teacher at Greenhill School who works with pinhole cameras and tintype; plant-inspired artist Shamsy Roomiani, who favors cyanotype; the Black family, which owns Photographique in Deep Ellum amd meticulously restores damaged photos; and Don Puckett, proprietor of Don's Used Photo Equipment on Irving Boulevard.
"We've always been interested in artists, and particularly those that craft images. At the micro level this film is about specific people and their dedication to a craft, but at a macro level, this is about the resurgence of film and analog photography," Reyes says. "Analog processes were almost forgotten in the rise of the digital age, but now that we have a new generation of artists working in film there is a revival that has a duality of nostalgia and contemporary subject matter."
"Creating documentaries facilitates a way for us to create a narrative for the arts and culture scene we are a part of, and it gives us the power to share this world with others that may never have known about it, but would be interested in it," she continues. "We submitted this piece as a way to perpetuate the notion that analog mediums are coming back and to reignite the popularization of the craft."
The other films screening at Studio Movie Grill on Oct. 8 are Rabbit Hunt, Half a Life, Election Night, Friday Nights in Fredericks, Mono Generation, Beto vs. Cruz: The Fight for 2018 and Two of Five Million. The documentary portion of the film festival runs Oct. 5-8, but the 30th Dallas VideoFest will continue to host events into November.
To learn more about local filmmakers Daniel Driensky and Sarah Reyes, who operate as Exploredinary, visit exploredinary.com. For more info about Dallas Videofest, visit videofest.org.
"Analogue People in a Digital World" screening, 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 8, Studio Movie Grill, $10, videofest.org.
