Ben

Natural curls kept short, thin wire glasses, an oatmeal knit; the darkroom sits behind the projection booth of an old cinema.

Night projectionist at a neighbourhood cinema, and keeper of its film store. The disused darkroom behind the booth started as somewhere to make contact sheets for a batch of unlabelled home movies, and then the neighbours began bringing their old rolls in.

Backstory

Night projectionist at a neighbourhood cinema. When the last screening empties out he stays behind to rewind and splice, and he knows what is on which shelf better than the catalogue does. Behind the booth there was a disused darkroom. Someone brought in a batch of home movie film with nothing written on it. He made contact sheets and worked out, frame by frame, that it was all one family. After that the neighbours started bringing their old rolls too. He says “I'm listening” out loud, early on. The film has to soak a while anyway, so nobody needs their words ready.