Film News – New films for 2025

2025 is here and it seems that the new years is ushering something else in too, as we have some new films for 2025! It is not often we get a new film come along, so I get excitable when they do! Let’s take a deeper look.

When I started this site back in 2011 the film scene wasn’t looking so rosy. There was bad news after bad news, and for the first few years of the site things just seems to get worse. Fujifilm was making cuts, Kodak was on rocky ground and Ilford was seemingly just getting by. Things were grim indeed.
Which is one of the main reasons I made JCH StreetPan, to show people that not all was lost and there was still some light in the darkness (weak film joke). But now we are in 2025 and an awful lot has changed for the better.

New Films

Gone are the doom and gloom days of seeing the fridges shrink, as now we seem to have an abundance of choices. Sure, they are not the same as they were and we are still missing a range of slide films (cough *fugu*), but the market has improved a great deal. Kodak brought back Ektachrome and has invested heavily in manufacture. Fujifilm cut and then ‘brought back’ Acros (although it is made under license by Ilford), and have apparently noticed that China is a thing, so have started making film in China for the local market. Shame they can’t do it for their domestic market in Japan, but that is a whole other gripe.
Other brands like Cinestill, Reflex, Harmann (though they aren’t really small) and so many more have been working hard to bring new films to market.

2024  was the year of the new film camera, with Rollei and Pentax making their debuts, and it looks like 2025 is going to be the year of the new film. It seems that a few companies have realized the value of the market and have been working hard to make entirely new films. So lets go through a few of them, in no particular order.

Harmann

OK, so technically it is not 2025 news, but I have included Harman Phoenix as not only was it a really big deal for Harman and the market in general, but it is a project that will see ongoing improvements to the formula. I anticipate that we will see more stable and balanced versions of the film in the near future. Harman has stated openly that they are re-investing in Phoenix and have made a serious commitment to the market. Hopefully we will see some other new films in the near future too. Kudos to Harman.

Lucky Film

They are saying that China will be the future, and Lucky Film is certainly trying to make that a reality. They have released a couple of black and white emulsions and now have their sights set on a new color film for the summer of 2025. That is an ambitious undertaking, but it is coming from a factory that made film on a massive scale for Kodak, so they have a pretty good idea of what they are doing.

Make no mistake, this is not a small company trying their luck(y). If Lucky gets this film right it will be produced in enormous quantities and will lead to other emulsions in the future.
I look forward to shooting a few rolls of what is rumored to be the cheapest color film on the market. You can read more about their plans here.

Light Lens Lab

LLL is more famous for their lens making capabilities, making a name for themselves by making very high quality homage lenses based on classic designs. But it seems they have greater ambitions. In an announcement on their site today they revealed that they have been quietly researching how to make a new film from scratch. Trust me, I know this is a major undertaking for anyone, but they are engineers so they know what they are getting in to.

Initially it looks like they are working on a Black and White film. Now some might say we already have a bunch of them, but a new one is always welcome, as is a company building their expertise and understanding of the manufacturing process and market. LLL has been very successful with their lenses, I expect no less from them when it comes to film.

In their own words;

“Our goals for this project include researching, developing, and producing films through the following development processes:

• Black and White film with T-Grain Structure, with speeds ranging from 100 to 1600
• C-41
• E-6
• Instant Peel-Apart Film (This is huge if true)
• ECN-2 for cinematography
• And more in the future

We also aim to produce films in various photographic or cinematographic formats; please stay tuned for future releases.”

No word on when this film will be released, but still great news. Bring me some of that 1600 black and white and I will be a happy camper.

Orwo

Orwo has been quietly making somewhat of a comeback in the last couple of years. And now on their site they have said they are producing new films. I also hear from the grapevine that they have been purchasing other film businesses, increasing their capability. If this is the case then we could be in for something interesting from them, as they made some classic films in the past and they have the AGFA recipes. I have been in touch with Orwo and they have alluded to the idea that there might be something more on the horizon. I hope to bring you more news this year.
It seems Orwo has been quietly consolidating and making sure their manufacture has a solid base, which has been an issue for other companies in the past. I hope that they can build on this and produce something for the community soon.

Ferrania

I have added Ferrania as I wanted to update people on the news coming from Italy. They don’t have a new film for 2025, at least as far as I know of. Realistically it is unlikely that they do.
It has been a tumultuous few years for Ferrania. They have had issues with the factory, the government and with people with less than good intentions.
I managed to have a brief chat with them last year about what was going on and about the future. They were struggling after some poor decisions and bad luck. Unfortunately they went silent for a while.
From the looks of things the company has now been sold to an unknown buyer of European origin, so perhaps we will see something new from them in the future, I will try to update when I get more information. They have the facility, the expertise and the knowledge, they just need a stable investor. It would be amazing to see some of those classic Ferrania lines come back, the P30 and P33 are amazing.

And what of Fugu?

Remember when I announced I was making a new slide film from scratch? Those were the days. We did actually make it, from scratch but then we had to stop. I am not allowed to say much, as lawyers are scary and I am not rich. But the long and short of it is that we had some legal issues and were forced to shelve the project. We had reached the final stage of the R&D, with stabilization reached and the color balance at a level we were happy with, but we had a run of bad luck with the legal issues, Covid and changes at the company we were working with. Eventually we had no choice but to put the project on ice.
Hopefully we can bring it back (under a new moniker) in 2025. We will see.

Foundations

So far so great. We have had new film cameras, new film stocks and even new development chemicals, everything should be golden, right? Well, pump those brakes, as we have still a couple of things to address.
We still need more. More cameras, more film. But what we really need more of is investment in the foundations of the industry. Manufacturers need to invest in the back end of the business. Kodak and Ilford have made great strides in this regard. But we also need more investment in development.
Labs are using Noritsu and Fujifilm machines that are stuck together with gum and wishes. This is not sustainable long term. There needs to be more companies willing to work on the tough and unglamorous problems.
We also desperately need new scanning technology investment, as you either have to roll the dice on a 20 year old scanner or get all MacGyver and build a camera scanning rig, and that is only for the hardcore few. We need a better and easier way to scan our negatives. Surely there must be some enterprising genius out there.

I am hopeful for 2025 and beyond. We have a lot to look forward to I have watched this community rise up and show the world that Film Is Not Dead. Now if we can only get Nikon to remake the F…

JCH

Your thoughts and comments are greatly appreciated. Be nice to one another please, we are all human beings.