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Screening film at the …

Perth International Arts Festival

Lindsay Morris

I was recently engaged by the Perth International Arts Festival (PIAF) to carry out four screenings
of Rolf de Heer’s films as part of the festival program in the Alexander Library Theatrette in
Perth, using the 35 mm plant that is still installed there. I am fairly certain that the setup is the
ONLY 35 mm plant available in Perth.
For many years I was the projectionist for the International Film Theatre, which ran regular
sessions on Sundays, oddly enough called “Sunday Cinema”. That ceased about eight years ago,
when the hire of the venue became unviable for the group. So after many years of operating there,
they disbanded and passed their funding reserves over to Australian Federation of Film Societies.
A nice windfall for them as the reserves were quite considerable.
The library theatre is a particularly well equipped venue, with 16 mm, 35 mm and DVD
projection equipment installed. PIAF wanted to run a retrospective of Rolf de Heer’s work, and
there were three titles not available in the now universally used, Digital Cinema Package (DCP)
format. Not that the library could normally screen DCPs.
The congested projection room. L-R: 35mm film platter, Fumeo 16 mm projector, NEC900C
digital projector, Balantyne 35mm projector (obsecured), audio mixer (in foreground).

14 REEL DEALS March 2017