History

Late 2004 I started shooting short films on video and in 2006 I discovered the Super 8 mm film format. Astonished by the look of it, I stopped using (digital) video and switched to Super 8 mm film as the only format to shoot films on. I searched for other film movements that also advocates shooting on Super 8, to establish a cooperation, empowering each other in the filmmaking quest. I came across the Remodernist Film Manifesto and a short movie shot on Super 8 called Shooting at the Moon (by Jesse Richards and Nicholas Watson). I reached out to this movement because the film Shooting at the Moon had an atmosphere I really liked. I also totally supported the filmmaking ethos brought forth in the manifesto. After reaching out to this movement, an alliance had been established. 

At the peak of the Remodernist Film alliance, the filmmakers in this collective made an omnibus feature film In Passing. The theme was the Remodernist Film Manifesto. All filmmakers made a short film around 10 minutes, reflecting the manifesto's influence on their filmmaking. The film premiered at the International Film Festival Manhattan and also screened at the Short Circuit Film festival in Sofia, Bulgaria.

In the November 2011 print edition of Filmink, film scholar, critic and programmer Jack Sargeant wrote about the movement and In Passing, referring to the movement as "the new personal cinema" and describing the evolution of "lyrical cinema" from the work of Andrei Tarkovsky, Wim Wenders,
Jim Jarmusch, Bela Tarr and through to the Remodernist filmmakers. 

Simultaneously I launched a project called
Shoot 8! to promote and screen super 8 mm films that people were shooting all around the world. We had 3 editions in 2010, 2012 and the last one in 2013. 

In 2012 I started writing a film treatment for a feature film Back from The Hague together with filmmaker Mike Nedved. This promising film will star Lynn Lowry, who performed in the films The Crazies by George A. Romero, Shivers by David Cronenberg and many more. The film treatment for this film is ready and as of 2023 in the casting process in order to move forward to principal photography.

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Florian Maricourt, a student at the University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle, wrote a thesis on Remodernist Cinema (in French) in 2014, which gives a very complete overview:
In the third chapter of this thesis he focuses on the bio-filmographies of the fundamental "remodernist film directors". The nine filmmakers who have approached the remodernist cinema and whom he considered essential, by the quality of their work or the efforts they have made to consolidate the movement: Scott Barley, Heidi Elise Beaver, Billy Childish, Dean Kavanagh, Rouzbeh Rashidi, Roy Rezaäli, Jesse Richards, Peter Rinaldi and Harris Smith.
 

After In Passing, I reached out to underground independent filmmakers to join powers in order to launch a promising omnibus feature film:
Impression X

Completely shot on Super 8 mm film, where each of the filmmakers direct a segment and filming the whole film cartridge in one long take. The project started in 2011 and after a poetic 11 years in 2022 ready for release and submissions to suitable film festivals. 

The completion of Impression X also marks the start of a new project;
8sploitation Grindhouse Cinema
The goal is to produce and curate films shot on Super 8 mm film. The idea is to have these films screened in 1 programming of around 2,5 - 3 hours with an intermission, in cinemas that are willing to serve as a venue for this.
 

The mission is:
Retro filmmaking, creating an ever-growing catalog of Super 8 mm films, screening at film houses, in order to bring back the original film experience.
 

Roy Rezaäli