By mcneditor editor@moviecitynews.com

Seattle Cinerama Film Festival Announced

Posted Thursday, August 25th, 2011 - No Comments »

Rare, Classic Films to Screen at Seattle Cinerama Theater

SEATTLE, Aug. 25, 2011 –  Film buffs will be treated to 15 classic widescreen movies during the Cinerama Film Festival, including extremely rare 70mm prints from studio vaults and the archives of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The festival opens Sept. 30 at Seattle Cinerama Theatre and runs through Oct. 16. Opening weekend will feature two of only seven movies ever produced for Cinerama’s three-projector technology, This is Cinerama and How The West Was Won.

The other movies featured will be widescreen classics in 70mm, including West Side Story, Lawrence of Arabia and Cleopatra. The 70mm prints Cinerama goers will enjoy are on loan from Hollywood studios’ vaults and rarely seen by general audiences, said theater operator Greg Wood. Prints will be loaned by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Disney & MGM.

The festival is sponsored by Seattle Cinerama Theatre and SIFF.

Cinerama Theatre is owned by Paul G. Allen, the Seattle philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft. He saved the vintage 1963 movie theater from demolition in 1988. Last year he gave the theater a multi-million dollar upgrade, with digital sounds, 3-D capabilities, a new screen, movie memorabilia from his personal collection and the best selection of locally-made concessions at any theater in Seattle.

Along with the capability to show the latest blockbusters in 3-D, Allen frequently donates use of Cinerama to non-profit film festivals, including the Seattle International Film Festival, Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, National Film Festival for Talented Youth (NFFTY) and the Seattle Jewish Film Festival.

“Cinerama has been one of Seattle’s great treasures, and Paul Allen has made it one of the best movie palaces in the world,” said Carl Spence, SIFF’s Artistic Director. “As much as digital cinema is transforming the movie going experience, it still has not achieved the rich look and dimension of celluloid, particularly compared to what you’ll see with the widescreen and luminous 70mm film featured at the Cinerama Festival.”

Allen said the Cinerama Festival is possible because of the generosity and cooperation of The Academy and the film studios.

“We’re grateful to the Academy and studios for sharing these treasures with us, and allowing Cinerama’s audiences to see them the way they were intended – on the wide screen,” said Allen, who saved Cinerama in 1988.

The films will be projected by state-of-the-art equipment and seen on the theater’s original Cinerama screen – the largest in the world. “Last fall we embraced the future with a large technical upgrade. We’re now excited to embrace the past with a special series dedicated to 70mm film,” Wood said.

WHAT CINERAMA IS: Cinerama came to popularity in the early 1960s, shot with three 35mm motion picture cameras mounted as one unit, sharing one motor. Three separate projectors running simultaneously merged the film into one movie, shown on a giant, deeply curved screen.

Tickets will be available for purchase for $12 beginning Friday, Aug. 26 at www.cinerama.com.

3-Strip Cinerama films:

This Is Cinerama How The West Was Won

70mm films:

The Sound Of Music Lawrence of Arabia Cleopatra 2001: A Space Odyssey My Fair Lady

West Side Story

Ray Pride <raypride@gmail.com>Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Playtime Baraka

South Pacific Tron Lord Jim

For more information about the film festival, including screening times, visit: www.cinerama.com.

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“I’m in Locarno, my movie is premiering for 1,000 people, which is nuts. A huge-ass screening, second day of the festival, 7:30pm in the sidebar competition. It’s comparable to Un Certain Regard or Director’s Fortnight. Every movie I saw in that section was fun, brilliant movies from around the world. The main competition was like Aza Jacobs and Mia Hansen-Løve, people who have been around. And I was like, “This is crazy. What am I doing inside the bloodstream of this establishment? I’m 27. I don’t belong here.” Every person I talked to there couldn’t believe what the movie cost, and then couldn’t believe when I told them what other American movies cost. We were the cheapest movie there by 65%. The next cheapest movie cost I think three times as much as we did. And they were just like, “You can’t make movies for what you’re telling us your movie cost.” And I told them, “Well, I can, I’m here, I’m in the same section as you are, so you are wrong. People think I’m lying when I tell them my budget. And also everyone likes it. I’m having a great time and people are being very responsive. Maurice Pialat’s widow was like, “I heard your movie’s good, I want a copy of it.” I’m like, “Well this is f**kin’ crazy.” Pedro Costa saw it there and really liked it and I’m like, What am I doing? I had gone in two months from screening at BAM for a lot of friends to Pedro Costa? This is the exact sentence: “Pedro Costa saw your movie. He’s a huge Jerry Lewis fan. He wants to talk to you about your movie and also Jerry Lewis.” And I thought, “I’m out of my element. I cannot have that conversation because that’s ridiculous.” Because his retrospective was happening at Anthology when I worked at Kim’s, and his Criterion box set came out when I was working at Kim’s. He can’t want to talk to me. That’s not possible. That’s not allowed. There is no world where that makes any sense!”  Or like when you wrote me to say that David Gordon Green wrote you to say, “I’m watching The Color Wheel and then I’m going to see Tree of Life.” There is no world where this is allowed! Again, somebody whose DVDs I was putting on the shelf, as, like, a hero. And it’s just like, “Oh, I’ll watch this movie.” There’s just a very fuzzy area in the middle there and it happened very quickly and I don’t understand why.  I still have a voice-mail from Sean [Price Williams, cinematographer]. I wish he was here to talk about it, but the voice-mail is a long pause and he’s just like, “I don’t want to tell you this, because it’s gonna make you so insufferable. I hate having to tell you this, but Leos Carax watched your movie and he really loves it, and he wants to meet you when he comes to New York.” I can’t live in a world where Leos Carax knows who I am, watches my movie, likes it, and thinks, “I wanna meet that guy.”
~ It’s Alex Ross Perry’s World

“I don’t know. It’s been a lot harder than I thought it was going to be to make the films I really dream of making. I was in Italy a few years ago scouting for this very beautiful film I wanted to make with Richard Linklater. We worked really hard on the script for a couple of years and couldn’t get the money together. It was an expensive idea. It’s heartbreaking when that happens over and over again and then the movies that do get made are ones that have lots of women being beaten up or zombies being killed. It’s all fine, it’s all okay, but it’s hard. I remember when River Phoenix died, he was ahead of me on this curve. He kind of realized how hard it was to make serious movies. People like Sidney Lumet figured out how to walk that line, but it’s hard. And it requires patience. It’s a life’s work and I wonder if I’m up to the task.”
~ Weary, Wary Ethan Hawke

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