In December 2023, Harman released Phoenix 200, its first color film made entirely at the company's factory in Mobberley, Cheshire, England. In August 2026, another Phoenix appeared: Phoenix 125. The new name, box and DX code made it look like a new film, but Harman did not present it as a new emulsion. Phoenix 125 returns to the character of the original Phoenix with its speed lowered from ISO 200 to ISO 125, reflecting how photographers had already chosen to expose it.
Phoenix II, released in 2025, was different. Harman describes it as a new emulsion developed and coated by the company, with redesigned dyes, couplers and layer structure, and changes to grain, contrast, color, exposure latitude and scanning.
For a photographer standing in front of the film refrigerator, both changes are real. Phoenix 125 changes the rating and how a camera meters the film, while Phoenix II changes the film itself. But they are not the same kind of change. When a new film is brought to market it may not be clear exactly what is new and what is a rebranding, and if the difference really makes any difference.
How film becomes a finished roll
A lot goes into making a new film. The emulsion and layer structure must be designed or adapted. The light-sensitive material is coated onto a wide roll of base, then tested and re-tested. The coated web (a continuous flexible strip of film base that is sent through coating equipment) is then slit to width and, for 35mm, perforated. It is spooled into a cassette, wound with 120 backing paper or cut into sheets. Only then can it be boxed, branded and distributed.
Those stages do not have to belong to one company. Kodak openly offers pilot and production coating to customers that retain ownership of their intellectual property. CineStill says its films are contract coated in Rochester, converted there and packaged by partners in Europe. The company on the box may specify a product, commission its coating, convert the coated material or support it in the market without owning the machine that laid emulsion onto base.
The distinctions become clearer when the claims are examined. Developed by identifies responsibility for the material. Coated by locates the light-sensitive manufacturing step. Converted by points to slitting, perforating, spooling or another operation that turns coated material into a usable format. Made and manufactured may cover some or all of these stages. On their own, they do not say which.
Coating remains the high-barrier step. No new coated film exists without access to a coating line somewhere. But access is not the same as ownership, and coated material is not yet a roll that a photographer can buy.
Film Ferrania shows what can happen when one manufacturer tries to bring the whole process under one roof. In July 2020, the company was coating P30 intended for 120 and expected the first rolls to ship that fall. But it was still installing and testing the machinery that would allow it to finish 120 rolls entirely in-house. Its 35mm converting facility was also running below full capacity, placing a firm limit on how many rolls it could release each month. Production reportedly had not stopped. The different parts of the factory were simply not ready at the same time. Ferrania could coat film, but its output still depended on finishing and conversion catching up.
What can change after coating
CineStill 800T shows how much can happen when motion-picture film is used as starting point for a still-camera product. CineStill says 800T was originally based on a 500-speed motion-picture film and that it developed a process to convert it into an EI 800 film for still photography. Current 800T is sold without rem-jet (a black backing layer used in motion-picture film that contaminates C-41 chemicals), factory-spooled in still-film formats and intended for ordinary C-41 processing. The company describes its color films as contract coated and converted in Rochester, but does not name every partner or set out the division of labor for each product.
Calling 800T merely repackaged film would leave out the work that makes it usable in a still camera and acceptable to a standard C-41 lab. Calling it an emulsion invented from nothing would go beyond CineStill's own account. Its novelty sits between those descriptions. Motion-picture technology has been converted into a supported still-photography product with a different exposure rating, processing route, physical format and quality-control obligation.
Kodak Professional Gold 200 in 120 moved through another part of the chain. When Kodak Moments announced it in 2022, the announcement was for Gold 200 in a new 120 format. The accompanying FAQ specifies a 3.94-mil ESTAR base (Kodak’s name for a polyester (PET) film base) and reformulated backing paper. It does not say that the emulsion is chemically identical to Gold 200 in 35mm, and it does not identify the coater.
Medium-format photographers could now buy Gold 200 in 120, positioned as a less expensive entry to Kodak's color-film range than Portra or Ektar. This was more than a change to the box: it put Gold into cameras that could not use the 35mm version.
Retrospekt's GRAFX films introduce their distinguishing feature later in production. Retrospekt describes GRAFX as ISO 400 color film with a graphic permanently pre-exposed into the negative. The company does not identify the underlying film or its coater, so GRAFX cannot be described as a new emulsion. Since the product is instead defined by a later step, GRAFX shows how a company can create a distinct film without claiming to manufacture the emulsion itself. Not every new film product begins with new chemistry.
An old name may require new work
The reverse assumption is just as unreliable. A revived film is not necessarily an old formula resumed without change.
Eastman Kodak and Kodak Alaris announced the return of Ektachrome E100 in 2018. In a later interview, Kodak Alaris film manager Andy Church explained that Eastman Kodak performed the development work. Re-establishing an old film could not simply mean retrieving a recipe: some original components were no longer available for health, safety or environmental reasons. The work required designing the emulsion structure, making small pilot coatings, testing the product and repeating the process when the results did not hold. Moving a sensitized emulsion to another base or format could require reformulation again.
The Ektachrome name expressed continuity for photographers. The work behind its return included new material decisions and new production trials. Revived accurately describes the product's return to the market; it does not, by itself, describe that the same chemistry was used to bring it back.
Phoenix 125 is a different kind of return. Harman brought back the original Phoenix formulation but lowered the film's rating from ISO 200 to 125, a true revival. Ektachrome kept its old name while its chemistry had to change; Phoenix 125 kept the original formulation while its name and rating changed.
Terms such as revived, reformulated and returned are therefore tricky to pin down and become useful only when the manufacturer or another attributable source explains the work beneath them. Without that explanation they describe the marketing angle, not the full production history.
Where the record ends
Some films reach the market without enough public information to locate them along the chain.
In July 2026, Lucky Film presented C400 color film and Yingzhe 100 black-and-white film at a photography exhibition in Shanghai. A report from Lucky's corporate parent identifies both as new products. A Reflx Lab listing for C400 gives the practical details a buyer needs: 35mm color negative film, ISO 400, DX coding, 36 exposures and C-41 processing. It also describes the film as freshly made by Lucky.
Neither source says who designed the emulsions, where they were coated, or who slit and loaded them. The corporate report establishes that Lucky presented the products. The retailer establishes what it offered for sale and repeats a manufacturing claim. Neither supplies the missing production chain.
That absence is not evidence of rebadging, and it is not proof of concealment. Edge markings, cassette design, image resemblance and community consensus cannot identify an emulsion with the certainty those claims require.
There are legitimate reasons for a manufacturer to leave a partner unnamed. Kodak sells confidentiality and intellectual-property protection as part of its contract-coating service. CineStill says it discloses partnerships only as far as those relationships permit and avoids trading on another company's name without permission. This is why an undisclosed supplier cannot automatically be treated as a hidden scandal, but it sometimes makes tracking a film's provenance very difficult or sometimes impossible.
More ways to make film
Taken together, these releases show a film industry with a surprising amount of motion. Harman is developing color emulsions and revisiting its first one. Kodak rebuilt Ektachrome and brought Gold to medium format. CineStill and Retrospekt create products through conversion and finishing, while Lucky has put two more films before buyers, even if their production history is not yet public.
Today's landscape requires companies to think beyond the old model in which a manufacturer handled every stage itself. Some still aim to do that, but most divide the work among several partners. The result is a smaller and more complicated industry, but also one that creates new paths to a finished roll. The encouraging part is not that every box contains a new emulsion, it's that so many companies are finding innovative ways to put film into our cameras.
GP