The WCFTR hosted the first ever Home Movie Day event in Brookfield, WI at the Brookfield Public Library on Saturday, April 2, 2016. WCFTR staff and student volunteers from the UW’s School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) Archives program inspected and projected film, played records, greeted patrons, and provided educational information about the value of home movies and how to preserve and care for them at home. Over fifty reels of 8mm, super8, and 16mm film were brought to the event, and the unique reels we projected from Brookfield residents had content ranging from birthday parties, swimming in local lakes, footage of parades around southern Wisconsin, and vacations in Hawaii and Greece.
Home Movie Day was started by a small group of film archivists in 2003 and now takes place all over the world. The WCFTR has previously hosted Home Movie Day events in Madison and Green Bay, and plans to take the event to northern Wisconsin this summer.