Meet the tiny team making the world's only peel-apart instant film – one 20-minute sheet at a time

Stills from videos: Abby Ferguson

Being in my line of work means that I'm exposed to all sorts of products and companies. Because of that, it's not often that I'm truly surprised by something. Recently, though, I had the opportunity to visit Supersense in Vienna, Austria, and I was left surprised and, frankly, delighted by a company doing something rather special.

I first heard of Supersense a few years ago through the An Impossible Project documentary. Supersense describes itself as an "all analog palace manufactory," focusing on analog products for each of the senses (hence the name). Indeed, if you're someone who loves old technology, Supersense is a dream come true. Chris Holmquist, the Production Manager at One Instant (a part of Supersense), graciously offered to show me around the entire space and share more about what makes Supersense tick.

Found in a historic, Venetian-style building in Vienna, the Supersense space is filled to the brim with analog processes of all types: a print shop with printing presses and die-cutters (touch), vinyl cutting tools (hearing), a restaurant (taste and smell) and One Instant, the makers of the world's only peel-apart packfilm (sight). The space also houses one of just seven 20x24 cameras in existence – a Wisner-based large format giant capable of producing the world's largest instant photographs.

As a photographer who loves anything film-related, I was especially keen to learn more about One Instant. The project was born out of Supersense's founder, Florian 'Doc' Kaps' love of photography and his mission to bring back instant film (which previously led to the revival of Polaroid).

One Instant is a tiny team making peel-apart instant film by hand. None of the process is automated at this point, and so every single step is handled by the team. If you think that sounds painstakingly slow and tedious, you're not wrong. Each piece of Type 100 film takes 20 minutes to assemble, at minimum. And that's only if all of the components are perfectly lined up and ready to go, which is rarely the case, so realistically, it takes much longer.

The handmade process naturally means the film is expensive: a pack of three Type 100 sheets costs $60, and a single sheet of 8x10 film will run you $66. Those are all pre-assembled options, but One Instant also offers DIY kits to offer a somewhat more affordable option, saving users just over $6 per sheet of film. These kits let photographers handle the final assembly process, minus the darkroom-reliant steps, thus keeping costs down.

At this point, One Instant is still using legacy Polaroid materials, including negatives, paper, and the pods that contain the chemistry. The goal is to gradually move away from that, so they aren't relying on old-stock materials, thus making the peel-apart film more future-proof. Given the success of Polaroid film's revival, I look forward to seeing what the future holds for the One Instant project.

You can learn even more about the process and the DIY packfilm specifically in the video below.