By Bill Mousoulis

Super 8 was the 16mm of my generation. By 1982, 16mm independent film production was starting to become industrialized. Its peak worldwide was in the early-to-mid 1970s, as the counter-cultural film movement had a thriving co-op scene, where thousands of 16mm short (and feature) films would be cheaply made and easily distributed, lapped up by people worldwide in universities, cinemas and many “free” spaces (events, parties, etc.). It had started in the 1960s with the New American Cinema (and before that, with Maya Deren and others), and quickly spread through the whole world, including Australia, where the avant-garde scene was particularly strong. As everyone knows, the period 1965-1975 was an intense and exciting period to be alive in, culturally, socially and politically, and the films of the time reflect this.