フィルム
フィルム
firumu
= film (photographic film; also film as in cinema)
Firumu (フィルム) is the Japanese loanword from English ‘film’ — covering both photographic film for cameras and, in some contexts, film as a movie. It has gained new relevance in the current film photography revival among young Japanese photographers.
Firumu (フィルム) refers primarily to photographic film — the light-sensitive medium used in film cameras (firumu kamera, フィルムカメラ) before digital photography became dominant. It also appears in compound words for thin material films: rappu firumu (ラップフィルム, plastic wrap/cling film), hogo firumu (保護フィルム, screen protector film for phones), and yaado firumu or yaado (for windows). For cinema/movies, Japanese more commonly uses eiga (映画) than firumu, though firumu can refer to a film as a physical reel. Key phrases: firumu kamera de toru (フィルムカメラで撮る, to shoot on a film camera), firumu wo genzou suru (フィルムを現像する, to develop film), and firumu ga kireta (フィルムが切れた, ‘the film ran out/snapped’ — an old emergency phrase from film camera days).
The ‘fi’ sound (フィ) in firumu is worth noting: Japanese phonology traditionally lacked the ‘fi’ sound (combining f + i), and it is rendered in the modern katakana system using フィ — two characters combined to approximate the foreign sound. This kind of phonetic approximation (called gaikokugo hyouki) is common in Japanese loanwords from English with sounds that don’t exist natively in Japanese. Listening to a native speaker say firumu carefully — the ‘fi’ is often closer to ‘fwi’ — helps calibrate pronunciation.
Everyday use
フィルムカメラで撮った写真は、デジタルと違う温かみがある。
Firumu kamera de totta shashin wa, dejitaru to chigau atatakami ga aru.
Photos taken on a film camera have a warmth that’s different from digital.
Casual / Social Media
フィルム写真にはまってる！現像に出すドキドキ感がたまらない。
Firumu shashin ni hamatteru! Genzou ni dasu dokidoki kan ga tamaranai.
I’m obsessed with film photography! The nervous excitement of dropping off film for development is the best.
Formal / Cultural context
銀塩フィルムの生産は縮小したが、近年の復興により需要が回復している。
Ginen firumu no seisan wa shukushou shita ga, kinnen no fukkou ni yori juuyou ga kaifuku shite iru.
Production of silver halide film declined, but demand has recovered due to the recent revival.
Japan played a central role in photographic film history. Fujifilm (富士フイルム, founded 1934) became one of the world’s two dominant photographic film manufacturers alongside Kodak, and its headquarters remain in Tokyo. The rise of digital photography in the 2000s decimated firumu sales, and Kodak went bankrupt in 2012. Fujifilm survived by pivoting aggressively into medical imaging, cosmetics, and other industries — while also maintaining a small but revived film photography line.
Since approximately 2018, film photography has experienced a striking revival among young Japanese photographers, driven by social media aesthetics. The distinctive grain, color rendering, and tonal quality of firumu photographs — especially Fujifilm’s color stocks like Fujicolor 100 and Velvia — have become aspirational visual styles. Film camera cafes and rental shops (firumu kamera rentaru) have opened in Tokyo and Osaka, offering hourly rentals of analog cameras. The revival has been significant enough to prompt Fujifilm to increase film stock production after years of decline — an unexpected reversal driven by nostalgia and aesthetic preference among digital-native youth.