Rescued Film Project develops old film rolls

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

The Rescued Film Project has rescued 1,200 rolls of film from the same photographer. They had never been developed. Even more interesting than the huge amount of film is the way it was packaged.

The Rescued Film Project needs help to finance everything.

Levi Bettwieser is the founder and film technician of the Rescued Film Project. The Rescued Film Project is an archive of photos rescued from lost and forgotten rolls of film from all over the world that were never developed.

So far, they have rescued 18,000 photos. They could never have done this without the support of a lot of people.

They have started a campaign because they need help again. About a year ago, they received 66 bundles of film. Each bundle contains 8 to 36 rolls of film, so there are around 1,200 rolls in total. They were all shot by the same photographer in the 1950s.

That fact alone is intriguing, but even more interesting is the way the films are packaged. Every exposed roll was put back in its box, with a handwritten note describing what was on it.

The box was then wrapped in several layers of aluminium foil, with tape wrapped around it. The tape was then labelled with what was on the film.

Once the photographer had collected enough rolls, they were packed tightly in a cigar box, which was then wrapped in several layers of newspaper and aluminium foil, as well as tape labelled with the contents.

Quite recently, a group of volunteers came to help unpack and catalogue the rolls. After six hours of work, eight of them had managed to get through 22 of the 66 bundles of film, simply because of the huge amount of unpacking involved.

They also regularly make beautiful videos of their projects, showing the process and the results. Sometimes the results are impressive.

Levi Bettwieser is now asking for help because he cannot manage it all on his own. In addition, the quality of the films does not exactly improve over the years. The old films from 1950 deteriorate a little more every day.

They have now started working with Blue Moon Camera in Portland to process most of the films. They can simply add all the work that the volunteers have to carry out in their limited free time to their daily processes. This makes things much faster.

They have also been given a substantial discount. But it is still an expensive project because of the cost of chemicals, envelopes, shipping, travel and so on.

So they are asking for financial help again, so they can rescue all the photos containing the memories and dedication of photographers from the past.

If everyone who follows them on Social Media, who enjoys rescued photos and the dedication to preserving them so they are not lost, gave them 1 dollar, they would have more than enough funds to preserve these films.

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