L’amorce is a student film club dedicated to analog cinema based at Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis University.
It is driven by a commitment to developing, supporting, and promoting student film through workshops, training sessions, screenings, calls for projects, and drop-in sessions both on and off campus.Discovery and the sharing of knowledge are at the heart of the association’s activities.
The association began with the creation of the Paris 8 shared film lab in collaboration with professors Damien Marguet and Grégoire Quenault.
For the past three years, the association has organized workshops that have trained new members who work independently during drop-in sessions, lead workshops themselves, and keep the lab alive.
These workshops also allow participants to work directly on film—scratching, painting, peeling, and more. The creations are then edited together to produce beautiful collective films.
Through university and community funding, the association has acquired equipment capable of handling nearly the entire production process for 8mm, Super 8, or 16mm films, from shooting to development and projection.
We also have a scanner and a 16mm editing table; we develop using our own black-and-white reversal film chemistry, “l’amorcienne,” and we also develop color reversal and negative film.
The lab has about thirty members and aims to continue growing to promote film production within the university.
To continue on this path, we recently launched a call for projects to support six new films that we will screen to a wider audience.
The association has already collaborated with several partners outside the university, notably the Film Gallery and the Écran cinema in Saint-Denis.
The association’s board currently consists of Martin Durieux, President; Benjamin Sebbagh, Secretary; and Gaïa Ingrao and Lothaire Charuel, co-treasurers.
