Cannes—Feb 2, 2006
Celebration of the Digital Cinema Awards for the first time
in Cannes during IDIFF 06
Yesterday and for the first time, the Digital Cinema Awards were celebrated in
the large auditorium Louis Lumière inside the Palais des Festivals of Cannes.
Created at XDC’s initiative, these prizes will be given every year during IDIFF
(International Digital Film Forum) to individuals having particularly
contributed to the development of digital cinema technologies.
Four awards were attributed as follows: Producer of the Year, Motion Picture
Director of the Year, Distributor of the Year and Exhibitor of the Year.
“In 2005, the main expected cinema release was Star Wars III …” explains Bernard
Collard, General Manager of XDC International, “this movie was deeply digitally
shooted … and for the first time, it was the largest release to be screened
digitally into theatres worldwide”. Both Rick Mc Callum, producer of Star Wars,
and George Lucas, creator and motion picture director received one Digital
Cinema Award.
“As distributor, Jean-Michel Rey and all the team of Rezo Films were chosen for
their dynamism. Indeed, for Saraband movie from Ingmar Bergman, Rezo films made
a lot of efforts to allow a maximum of moviegoers to benefit from the digital
screening despite the small number of equipped theatres. The 2005 Saraband Tour
was a premiere in the history of digital cinema.” says Alain Remond, General
Manager of XDC France.
Finally, the most dynamic exhibitor is Eberhard Mertz, who has 4 digital screens
into cinemas Gloria and Metropol in Stuttgart in Germany. He was the first
worldwide exhibitor to screen digitally and simultaneously 3 movies (Sin City,
The Island, FlightPlan).
More info at www.digitalcinemawards.com.
