Aggie,
After the Photokina I see a fair future for us.
Sure, film was definitely a side topic at the large brand halls - Kodak had a tiny shelf with films and developers, papers etc, Fuji showed new Portrait films (declaring war to Kodak) and I didn´t see a single box of film at Agfa.
But I had many talks with many people who knew their business.
It isn´t like there is no way to produce small batches of photographic films - there are small coating assemblies available which are usually used for testing procedures... 30cm wide instead of 1m or more.
In a worst case scenario these could be used for standard production (some are already in for special jobs), the only problem would be the KnowHow and the staff.
But once they are laid off at the companies... who cares who they work for?
Re Forte - they are in financial trouble again, two german sellers talked about it in public - one is Herr Loeffler of phototec.de, the other is Mirko Boedecker of fotoimpex.de. The two don´t agree with each other in terms of future prospects for Forte..
To coat a batch of paper you need the order and the money to finance the coating - that´s some ten thousand Euros per run, depending on the size of the batch and the size of the machine.
Someone recently said that Forte depended on payments in advance, before the material was actually produced. Forte seems to have one big problem - they buy the raw material in the West, paper base (there isn´t much left but Schoeller in Osnabrueck and Muellersohn), sensitizing materials, whatever. They pay big money for it, the same or probably more Ilford or Agfa pay for that stuff. But their prices are lower.
When I walked by the Forte booth I saw nothing, I didn´t actually noticed anything there until I was some dozen meters away - there wasn´t much on display, so I didn´t turn around.
The nonexistant Forte booth wasn´t with Fotoimpex, it was with B.I.G., the Brenner Import-Gesellschaft, another large warehouse and importer. Different hall, different place. BIG sells Forte by the Forte brand, not with a private label as ´impex does.
Foma was directly next to Fotoimpex, I had a good talk with the Czechs and learned a bit more about the new old Adox stuff at the other one. Too bad those T-Shirts weren´t for the people (Grey, with the "adding the grey to black&white" slogan on it). The looked fine.
Well.... I put my cards on Foma and Agfa. I believe they will make it - I am not sure how much of this is believe or wishful thinking... both need a 180° turn in terms of customer relations, of information, they need to start caring of who is selling their products and how, they need to approach the pro to get a few "high standing examples" for the ordinary customer. And they don´t need to send interested sellers away, thats a very bad habit.
Both have products that are excellent, some are the best available - Agfas chemistry for bw, for E6, RA4 is excellent, consistent, easy to handle and quite environment friendly (in comparison). They have a good name in that sector.... the Multicontrast papers are a dream for many who work with them... same with Foma - cheap and decent stuff, some quite innovatice (R100 reversal film, T200).