Rolls of Kodak Gold film hold on a shelf on the Precision Camera & Video retailer on August 12, 2025 in Austin, Texas.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images
Clair Sapilewski has dozens of rolls of digicam film prepared to make use of in her cabinet always.
A pictures main at American University, the 21-year-old stated she at all times retains her film stocked to attain that aesthetic that solely film cameras can seize.
“It teaches you how to slow down, how to look at things more carefully and how to choose your shots more wisely,” she stated.
It’s a part of an ongoing development as members of Generation Z have taken an curiosity in film cameras. Sapilewski stated whereas her professors taught her the fundamentals, she and her associates have used their film cameras to develop images that their iPhones cannot fairly replicate.
And in her school circle, the preferred model for digicam film is Eastman Kodak, a firm she calls a “household name.”
“Pretty much everybody uses Kodak films — the average film user, when they reach for film, is going to reach for Kodak,” Sapilewski stated.
But on the opposite aspect of the lens, Kodak could also be singing a totally different tune.
The 133-year-old pictures firm indicated in its second-quarter earnings report on Monday that its funds “raise substantial doubt” in its means to proceed operations as a going concern.
The firm reported a web lack of $26 million, down 200% from web revenue of $26 million for the second quarter of 2024. Kodak additionally posted a 12% lower in gross revenue with thousands and thousands in debt obligations.
“Kodak has debt coming due within 12 months and does not have committed financing or available liquidity to meet such debt obligations if they were to become due in accordance with their current terms,” the corporate wrote in a regulatory filing.
Shares of the corporate are down greater than 15% yr thus far.
Kodak plans to terminate its retirement pension plan and a firm spokesperson instructed CNBC that Kodak goals to make use of cash that it’ll obtain from the settlement to repay its money owed.
“Kodak is confident it will be able to pay off a significant portion of its term loan well before it becomes due, and amend, extend or refinance our remaining debt and/or preferred stock obligations,” the spokesperson stated.
This is not the primary time the corporate has confronted struggles.
Founded in Rochester, New York, within the late 1800s, Kodak rode the wave of pictures with a aim of simplifying the method for customers. But as the period of digital expertise took over, the corporate confronted growing struggles with staying related as cameras moved past film and disposables.
In the 2000s, the corporate tried to maintain up with the rising development of digital cameras however struggled, based on Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes, who stated Kodak was ignoring issues on the time in regards to the evolving macroenvironment.
“Digital technology wasn’t ready right away to cut sales of film — but common sense told us differently,” Reitzes wrote in a March note. “At the time, Kodak management told us that film would co-exist with digital cameras and more photos would be taken — and more would need to be printed by Kodak.”
Instead, Kodak filed for chapter in 2012. It reemerged a yr later in 2013 with 4 foremost enterprise elements: print, superior supplies and chemical substances, movement image, and shopper, which incorporates cameras and equipment.
A ‘revolt in opposition to digital perfection’
In current years, nevertheless, the retro digicam development has been seeing a resurgence.
In 2020, then-General Manager Ed Hurley told NBC News that Kodak made greater than twice the variety of film rolls in 2019 than it made in 2015.
And on final yr’s third-quarter earnings name, Kodak CEO Jim Continenza stated the corporate was experiencing such excessive demand for film that it wanted to improve its Rochester manufacturing facility.
“Our film sales have increased,” Continenza stated on the time. “As we continue to see our commitment and our customer commitment to film, still and motion picture, we are going to continue to invest in that space and continue with that growth.”
According to Fortune Business Insights, the worldwide cinema digicam market dimension is quick rising and estimated to achieve $535 million by 2032. The Global Wellness Institute named “analog wellness” — together with pre-digital expertise — its prime development for 2025.
That development has been pushed largely by Gen Z, which has turned to old-school aesthetics in what’s been a “divorce” from the hyperrealism of digital pictures, based on Alex Cooke, the editor-in-chief of Fstoppers, a pictures information web site.
“I think there’s this rebellion against digital perfection where film feels real in this kind of hyper-curated Instagram and TikTok world, where images are filtered and Facetuned and algorithm-tested,” Cooke stated.
For members of Gen Z, who grew up within the smartphone age, Cooke stated such a pictures brings a “nostalgia without lived experience,” the place youthful individuals are romanticizing a slower tradition and breaking the moment suggestions loop.
The aesthetics of film are additionally at play, Cooke added, with the distinctive colours and grains capturing one thing a smartphone couldn’t. Ironically, social media even feeds into amplifying the development, he stated.
Using film cameras and growing that film additionally performs into a Gen Z development of digital minimalism, based on Digital Camera World U.S. Editor Hillary Grigonis.
As a skilled photographer, Grigonis stated she’s seen Gen Z lean into the sensation of “disconnecting” when utilizing film, which supplies a extra tangible pictures expertise than smartphones.
“Part of the rise in film photography among Gen Z is likely from that desire to disconnect and the craving for that retro aesthetic,” Grigonis stated, including that she was shocked at Kodak’s financial struggles given the general rise in demand.
For 25-year-old Madison Stefanis, Kodak was her entry level into the digicam world. A Gen Z herself, Stefanis created 35mm Co, a film digicam firm particularly geared toward making the pictures type simple and accessible for her era.
Stefanis stated she’s seen that youthful individuals are leaning into the emotional connection created by the delayed gratification of ready for images to be developed, one thing that is develop into “lost in the digital age.”
Because she’s seen Gen Z driving the resurgence of film, Stefanis stated she was “shocked” at Kodak’s declaration about its means to proceed as a going concern.
“Gen Z are really craving something they can hold in their hands,” she stated. “These days, at least for myself, most of my memories live either in my mind or in my phone, so I think having actual tangible, physical objects where we can store our keepsakes and those key moments feels really special to my generation.”