Print Generations is Canyon Cinema’s inaugural film commissioning project. Inspired by the 16mm Centenary (1923-2023), and borrowing its title from J.J. Murphy’s astounding structural showpiece, Print Generation (1974), the program supports analog-based filmmaking in the Bay Area. For this first iteration, four filmmakers—Celina de Leon, Tijana Petrović, Amy Reid, and TT Takemoto—were selected to create new works in 16mm film (Celina subsequently withdrew prior to the program’s completion). The participating artists were chosen through an open application process by a committee composed of Elena Gross, Diana Sánchez Maciel, and Steve Seid. No restrictions were imposed on the proposed films’ subject matter, style,or length. A commitment to working with 16mm film was the only requirement.
Incorporated as an artist-run distribution co-op in 1967, Canyon Cinema is one of the few remaining distributors committed to providing access to this essential 20th-century art form. Though the organization has expanded its distribution program in recent years to incorporate a wider range of contemporary media practices, including moving image work produced in digital and hybrid formats, Canyon continues to be a key resource for artists working in the 16mm format, and for audiences interested in this distinctive medium. As a stakeholder in the history and tradition of small-gauge filmmaking, Canyon is committed to helping to preserve the tools, materials, and local knowledge that are essential to the handmade 16mm cinema tradition. The complementary goals of this program are to support both the creation of new emulsion-based artworks as well as the fragile yet resilient ecosystem of artisanal photochemical film practice.
Print Generations is conceived as a means to continue to develop and expand Canyon’s collection, and as a catalyst to grow and nurture our artist-member community by providing material support and resources to the cornerstone of that community: independent Bay Area filmmakers. As more and more commercial film labs close, we believe the future of photochemical film practice rests with a burgeoning international network of artist-operated labs, such as our project collaborator: the Bay Area’s own Black Hole Collective Film Lab (BHCFL).
Print Generations commenced on May 8, 2024 with a project orientation at BHCFL’s West Oakland studio. From there, the selected artists were provided funding, technical support, and instruction to elaborate their films, including a series of workshops led by BHCFL collective members. The topics of these workshops included Phytography (June 23, 2024), Color Hand-Processing (November 23, 2024) and 16mm Contact Printing (January 12, 2025 and March 16, 2025). Over the course of the program, the cohort also met with Canyon Cinema staff to review the progress of their films.
Topiary Landberg’s accompanying essay provides further contextualization and analysis of the Print Generations projects. After summarizing 16mm’s history as a versatile format spanning commercial, amateur, and artisanal uses, Landberg considers the medium’s enduring appeal and resilience in the face of digital convenience and immediacy. Rather than being drawbacks, the aspects that define today’s DIY photochemical workflows—the lack of total control, inbuilt imprecisions, slowness, and serendipitous surprise—combined with 16mm’s ability to refract, abstract, and recursively expand images of the natural world—remain key to its allure. However, the format’s 21st century resurgence is as much conceptual and ethical as it is aesthetic, the author suggests:“Stepping back into analog processes reminds us that images arise out of their own material processes and may not be instantly resolvable or infinitely malleable.” In an age when seemingly any image can be conjured with a few keywords, the challenges and patience that analog filmmaking requires constitute an important and necessary counterweight. The films produced for Canyon’s first-ever commissioning project are a reminder of 16mm’s idiosyncrasy and a reflection of its still-latent future.
Print Generations is supported by the Owsley Brown III Philanthropic Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation.
