They Fled Kyiv With a Newborn. Then They Rebuilt a Film Lab in Berlin.
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Time to read 5 min
Before Film Speed Lab existed, what was your relationship with film? Was photography already a part of your life, or did the lab come first and pull you into it?
Our story starts in 2012 in Kyiv, Ukraine where we launched our first analog project - an instant photography store called Fotovramci ( www.fotovramci.com).
Fotovramci went through multiple transformations, and around 2016 we started operating as a film lab also. Now Fotovramci is one of the largest film labs and analog photography stores in Ukraine.
There are 2 people who started all this :) It’s me, Katya Hridina-But, and Dmytro But. We’re co-owners and co-founders of Fotovramci and Film Speed Lab. We’re also a family, so basically we’re partnering in everything :)
When the full-scale war started in Feb 2022, we fled from Kyiv to the west of Ukraine. Our 3rd daughter was born in April 2022, which allowed us to leave the country altogether. It was a time of uncertainty. As well as now, of course, but we didn’t know what to expect, and we didn't want to return our kids to Kyiv (the Russians had given up on taking Kyiv, but no one knew if they were going to try again) at that moment.
We love what we do, and over the years we’ve built and optimized the lab processes, so we decided to give ourselves a try and build something outside of Ukraine.
Berlin is a city with a really specific creative identity. Was that intentional, or did Berlin choose you?
We conducted market research and talked to our European and UK partners when we decided to open a lab in the EU. So it was our confident choice. One of the reasons we chose Berlin was the relatively large Ukrainian community (and specifically our customers from Ukraine). These were creative people who also fled due to the war.
Now the majority of our customers are non-Ukrainians, but we thought that it would be easier to start with at least some audience that knows you and is ready to trust your film. And this approach definitely worked.
Walk me through the first few weeks of actually opening. What broke, what surprised you? Was there an “aha” moment where you finally had a breakthrough?
It was a very busy time :) We moved all together (we are a family of 2 adults and 3 kids) in June 2022. We had to arrange school for our oldest daughter (she was going to the 1st grade without knowing German at all; now she’s fluent, just in case!), a kindergarten for our middle daughter, we had to find an apartment (which is a challenge in Berlin, especially for people without any credit history in Germany), deal with tons of papers, etc. Plus, opening a company and finding space for a lab. As we used our savings to open the lab in Berlin, we didn’t have the luxury of waiting and doing things one by one. We had to act quickly to start generating positive cash flow as soon as possible.
An epiphany for me came at the opening party in Oct 2022. A lot of Ukrainians were coming to us, our customers from Kyiv who now live here. They were really thankful that we opened a lab here. For them, it was not only a feeling of home but also a service they really valued in Ukraine. I never realized that our work might be so valuable and important to people. It made me confident that we’re doing the right thing.
There's a line on your about page that really stuck with me: "We notice the small things — the dust on your B&W roll, that we manually clean away." In an increasingly automated world where speed is the whole game, what causes you to actually slow down and notice?
I would say that it’s more about attention to detail and our strong desire to deliver our work at the highest level. We have the fastest turnarounds in Germany, but we’re also maintaining quality.
How do you think about the scan as part of the craft?
Scanning is one of the processes of film interpretation. It has lots of possible outcomes. Different people can scan (so interpret) one film differently. Moreover, one person in different moods or any other conditions can scan one roll differently. We have specific guidelines on how we see this outcome so that each of our team can make this interpretation accordingly.
Film processing is chemistry. There's a deg repeatability to it, but also a flexibility between variables like humidity, temperature, or even chemistry age. How do you stay consistent in your craft without sterilizing out the things that make film so interesting?
Our customers rely on us because we give consistent results. For us, it’s crucial to keep delivering consistent results; that is why processing film is a strict, defined process. All the magic and art are on the customer’s side when they shoot film. We follow processes.
Your team is big on meetups and community initiatives. What does that look like? Who's showing up, and what are they looking for beyond just getting their film back?
I think there’s no rocket science here. People tend to connect with others who share their interests. We offer this opportunity by organizing different meetups so that people passionate about analog photography can meet, get to know each other, and have a nice analog time, etc.
There's a tension in analog photography right now — it's simultaneously more accessible than it's been in years and somehow way more expensive. Does that create a community problem? Who gets left out?
As an entrepreneur, I continually assess the value of our work. In the world we live in now, such a medium (a film roll is a physical item, so the production costs money, and with the increasing demand, the costs increase accordingly; another important thing is to keep production environmentally friendly, as well as the rest of the consumption process, etc.) simply cannot be cheap. But I guess this is the same for other analog/physical hobbies/mediums. Anything that involves physical goods and people's labor simply cannot cost low.
Finally, think the next 10 years. What does that look like for Film Speed Lab? What kind of legacy does your team hope to impart?
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Natalie Carrasco
Moment's Head Editor for The Journal, photographer, amateur gardener, natural wine enthusiast, yogi, sun bather, rambler / etc.
