Molly Wheeler (Lucy Gellman photo)
October 16, 2015 - Molly Wheeler first heard of Home Movie Day in 2004 while attending a conference for the Association of Moving Image Archivists. “It just cracked my mind open,” said Wheeler, reflecting on the annual celebration of amateur films and filmmakers in a recent interview on WNHH’s “Deep Focus.” “I thought it was one of the coolest events I had ever heard of.”
Watching other people’s home movies may at first glance seem like a strange candidate for the coolest way to spend an afternoon. But for Wheeler, an archivist at the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library who specializes in audiovisual material, Home Movie Day represented a perfect intersection of three pursuits she cares deeply about: film preservation, social history, and community engagement.