Italian film producer FILM Ferrania is now under new ownership, with production of its black-and-white films and development of its colour films “back on track”.
Jake Seal, the English investor who runs German film producer ORWO and the film coating facility InovisCoat, is the new owner.
Seal sent a statement to Kosmo Foto confirming that he had taken control of the Italian film producer at the end of 2024.
The statement said: “The deal was completed in a drawn out and competitive acquisition format at the end of last year. A new board is in place. FILM Ferrania has been busy establishing a new foundation and building out the team, which has included welcoming back retired or semi-retired scientists and chemists from the surrounding area, who were ex Ferrania/3M.
“P30 and P33 and colour are back on track.”
Kosmo Foto first heard rumours that Seal had brought the troubled Italian producer earlier this year, but the new ownership was confirmed with a major article in the Italian press this week.
The newspaper Il Secolo XIX, a broadsheet daily newspaper in Genoa near where FILM Ferrania is based, ran a feature on Wednesday (9 April) in which Seal was pronounced the new head of the company, which emerged from the ashes of Ferrania in 2013.
FILM Ferrania initially launched a Kickstarter to help raise funds to produce colour slide film, but the film has not yet been released. From 2017, FILM Ferrania instead began reproducing black-and-white film stocks, starting with the high-contrast P30.
Two other black-and-white films – Orto and P33 – followed, but FILM Ferrania had issues producing consistent stock.
Ferrania was once one of Europe’s biggest film producers, with its Solaris brand of consumer colour negative films often being rebranded by photographic chains, pharmacies and mail-order processing labs.
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).
I’m doing everything I can to promote film photography in the 21st Century, and help it survive and thrive. If you want to write something for Kosmo Foto, please drop me a line at foto.dowling@gmail.com.
Great news that Ferrania us producing film again! And I think it’s good news that inoviscoat owners Ferrania now. I think both companies will come strong out of this one, especially seeing that Inoviscoat ownes a lot of Agfa patents and now I guess also the Ferriania patents, so hopefully they can get some more color film in the market.
I hope the quality is improved. The 35mm film I bought is in defective canisters and I am not able to use it—the movement is so tight I feared I’d break my camera. A pity as the sample photos had a look I instantly liked.
I’ve had nothing but great success with Ferrania P30. It’s the most consistently brilliant 35mm B&W I’ve had the pleasure of shooting and developing at home. Can’t wait for them to start producing film again.
This is from April, so when will it available again to buy (it’s late June, now)?
I guess this summarises what a farce the Kickstarter turned out to be.
Ultimately never delivered much to backers, never communicated what was happening and have ultimately sold off the whole thing without any final update to explain anything at all.
Ferrania’s webpage is gone. Does anyone know what’s happening?