Maybe it’s something about the imperfections in a film shot on Super 8 or 16 mm, the home-movie earthiness that reminds us that actual people are in front of and behind the camera, not just the behemoth of a film company. Maybe that’s what lured James Parrish to those early short-film screenings in Chapel Hill, N.C., which motivated him to replicate those monthly evenings with Flicker when he came to Richmond.

Since moving here in 1997 to work in development and fundraising for VCU’s School of Nursing, Parrish has also cultivated the local film scene, starting the Richmond Moving Image Co-Op with Michael Jones, which has become the staging ground for Flicker, the James River Film Festival, the Italian Film and Food Festival, Attack of the 50 Foot Reels, the upcoming Folk Film Festival (piggybacking on the National Folk Festival) and Home Movie Day (for cleaning up those old films of grandma in a bikini).

All volunteer and without a home base, the Richmond Moving Image Co-Op events travel wherever they can hang a screen. But for Parrish it’s about community: a bunch of people sitting on the cinematic equivalent of a back porch, singing songs on film.