Fujifilm Japan has suspended sales of all its remaining 35mm colour negative and 35mm/120 slide films in its home country, citing a “shortage of raw materials”.
The announcement was made on the Fujifilm Japan website on Wednesday (29 March).
A machine-translated version of the original message published in Japanese said:
“Dear Customer,
Thank you for your continued patronage of Fujifilm products.
Regarding “colour negative film 135 size” and “reversal film 135 size and 120 size”, it is difficult to supply sufficient products due to a shortage of raw materials, so we will stop accepting domestic orders from today. I will pause. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused to our customers.
We will inform you again on our website about when we will resume accepting orders.
We will continue to take measures to ensure the stable supply of products as soon as possible. We appreciate your understanding.”
A list of products below this message shows the affected films, which includes all of the company’s remaining Provia and Velvia slide films, as well as all colour negative films, including the Fujicolor 100 and Superia Premium 400 films made for the Japanese market.
The translated wording from the original notice only mentions “domestic orders” and it is not yet known what this new restriction means for international orders.
The announcement comes on top of earlier issues with the supply of Fujifilm colour films. In November 2002, the company said it was temporarily pausing production of its 35mm colour films because of issues getting hold or raw materials.
A similar issue with 120-format colour slide film was announced earlier in 2022.
Fujifilm’s roster of films has been slimmed in recent years, with all of its black-and-white films (apart from a new version of Neopan Acros manufactured by Harman in the UK) and many colour emulsions being pulled.
I'm a New Zealander who has been living in London since the mid-1990s, shooting film seriously since the year 2000. Kosmo Foto was launched in 2012 and has since become a film brand, with the release of my first films Kosmo Foto Mono 35mm (2017) and Kosmo Foto Mono 120 (2019).
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rather different translation by using deepl:
But Bellamy said it’s all frozen stock ?
That is an idiotic meme that’s been going around the internet for about a decade at this point. (Apparently all Fuji film stock was made in the 2000s and has been hoarded deep in an underground vault at the foot of Mt. Fuji, and they’re selling it off bit by bit). So everytime they hit a supply chain snag, we can all go into crisis mode because it’s the end of the secret stash. By no means believe there are actually problems sourcing ingredients! It’s all a carefully crafted conspiracy by the corporate evil doers, for reasons no lay person… Read more »