Visitors from Egypt
15 Jul 2024
Lena Naassana and Roger Anis visited the lab on Friday 12th July 2024. Lena is a Cairo based photographer and filmmaker, and Roger is from Egypt but works as photographer based in the Netherlands.
Lena also runs a photography lab called The Laboratory alongside other initiatives that are related to film/photography. Most recently, she has begun branching into motion picture, specifically 8mm, by organising a Super 8 Short Film Competition called Two.Five.
Lena reached out to S8RL because in Egypt, there are no labs at all working to develop/scan cinema film, and only a few working with photography. The Laboratory Film lab has build a solid photography base in the past few years, but now as they look to move into motion picture, they find themselves facing many challenges, and there is no one to reach out to for consultation/advice locally – or even regionally. So, why not drop by in Den Haag once she’s there.
We talked about many topics and what surprised me is that they have so much troubles in Egypt that we can’t imagine. In Europe for example you can relative easily buy raw chemicals. Even a small lab can buy film and super8 cartridges directly from Kodak and in a normal situation you receive the goods within a week. Materials like super8 leader, film splicers, super8 reels and Kodak film are not so easy to import into Egypt. Things are easy in the European Union.
Furthermore we spoke about how to develop film, how to dry these and how to clean ECN-2 colour negative films during or after processing. It was a very nice and warm conversation and I really hope that Lena and her friends find a way to work around all the issues they have. It should not be like that. Everybody should have access to film and processing. I gained respect for people for continuing and wanting to work analog despite all the difficulties. That takes perseverance.