Moving Amateur Movies: The International Amateur Cinema Network in the 1930s

During the 1930s the 16mm format enabled amateur filmmakers around the world to create new opportunities for films to circulate outside commercial channels. The Institute of Amateur Cinematographers (IAC) World Tour began in 1934 and circulated amateur films through four continents. This essay describes the films that made up this program and traces their movement from the UK through Europe and Asia, simultaneous with parallel international film circulation in the USA. The essay investigates how amateur film organizations in UK, USA, Italy, and Japan mediated the connection among particular national film cultures and international networks, how these connections were articulated in local amateur discourse, and how the circulation of 16mm amateur films reinforced these articulations. 16mm film was the facilitating format for the global amateur network and this chapter investigates how it functioned and was understood during this period. The format’s capacity for both standardization and adaptability proved crucial as it performed a crucial infrastructural role in the amateur distribution apparatus. By the mid-1930s 16mm film was the lingua franca of international amateur film and the connecting thread of filmmakers in different countries and across radically different geo-political contexts.