Cannes —May 16, 2007
The 60th Cannes Film Festival Goes Digital
31 Motion Pictures - 84 Digital Screenings - 16 Digital Systems!
As the official partner of the Cannes Film Festival, XDC is providing all of the necessary equipment and expertise to support over 80 digital screenings including the parallel sections during the May competition, to more than 16 Cannes theatre rooms – including the famous Louis Lumière auditorium.
The 60th Anniversary film, three long-feature films of the Official Selection,
including one motion picture in competition, a « Premiere » during the Midnight
Screening with the 3D projection of the U2 concert, the opening of the Critics’
Week (« Heroes »), renewing classic movies during Cannes Classics … For its 60th
Anniversary, Cannes is still the leading Film Festival by implementing the most
advanced digital projection technical solutions and by offering to the cinema
industry the best of the technology.
Bernard Collard, General Manager of XDC International: “XDC is very proud to be
part of this 60th Festival, an optimal competition that will showcase the best
of the digital cinema industry. This exciting commitment gives XDC the
opportunity to exemplify themselves as a deploying entity aiming at a
large-scale digital cinema roll-out. As the leading digital cinema company in
Europe, the pan-European roll-out target for XDC is 8,000 digital screens within
the next 5 years.”
List of the digital screenings – 60th Cannes Film Festival
Official Competition : “Zodiac” (17-18/05), “The Last 15” (24-26/05), “The
Oate’s Valor” (24-26/05)
Out of Competition : “ Ocean’s Thirteen” (24-25/05), “Sicko” (19-20/05)
Midnight Screenings : “ U2” 3D (18-19-20-21/05)
Special Screenings : “The 11th Hour” (19/05), “The War” (22-23/05), “He Fengming”
(18/05)
The 60th Anniversary film : “To Each His Own Cinema” (20/05)
Cannes Classics : “Maurice Pialat - L’amour existe” (18-21/05), “Brando”
(19-20/05), “Lindsay Anderson-Never Apologize” (25/05), “Bound by Chastity
Rules” (18/05), “Suspiria” (18/05), “Man of Cinema - Pierre Rissient” (19/05)
“Donne-moi tes yeux” (19/05), “Hondo” (21/05), “Rio Bravo”(25/05), “Hamlet”
(20/05), “Henry V” (20/05), “Richard III” (22-26/05), “Limite” (23/05), “Claude
Lelouch – 50 ans de cinema” (24/05)
Critics’ Week : “Heroes” (17/05)
Film Market : “Elvis and Annabelle” (19-21/05), “Night Train” (26/05), “Scar”
(19-20/05)
Director’s Fortnight : “Cruising” (23/05), “Un homme perdu” (18/05), “Zoo”
(20-21/05)
Installations to support the 84 digital screenings of the Festival
For the Official Selection, seven 2K DLP Cinema® Christie projectors1 will be
installed into the following auditoriums: Lumière (including 3D projections),
Debussy, Bazin, Buñuel (also equipped for 3D projections), 60th Anniversary
Theatre and the Beach Cinema.
For the Cannes Film Market, one 2K DLP Cinema® Kinoton projector will be
installed in the Bory auditorium whereas seven full HD DLP Standard Christie
projectors will equip the other rooms.
For the Critics’Week, one 2K DLP Cinema® Kinoton projector will be placed inside
Espace Miramar.
Bernard Collard said: “This year, XDC assures that the Festival will be
efficiently deployed by the most advanced digital cinema technologies, i.e. 2K
DCI 2 compliant Christie and Kinoton projectors, Doremi JPEG2000 digital cinema
servers and 3D projections.”
A higher number of films will be digitally processed and quality controlled by
the XDC Digital Content Lab in comparison with last year. As Official Partner of
the Festival, the Film Market, the Critics’ Week and Director’s Fortnight, XDC
charges the producer, filmmaker or distributor a very attractive flat fee amount
which includes conformation of the source material, encoding, encryption and
quality controls. “Thanks to that contribution, XDC gives to the motion picture
community (major studios as well as small producers) the possibility to enjoy,
during Cannes Festival, the benefits of the world’s optimal screening
conditions.”, said Alain Remond, General Manager of XDC France, who also pointed
out: “Today, digital cinema allows all members of the production and delivery
chain to have the opportunity to get their stories to screen the way they
intended. Indeed, since more and more movies are shooted and post-processed
digitally, digital screening helps avoid expensive operations to convert to
35mm, which is particularly crucial for some independent films with limited
budgets.”
EVS Broadcast Equipment, a significant shareholder of XDC specialising in
production technology for the broadcast industry, will be providing TV Festival
de Cannes (the official organisation in charge of broadcasting the 12 days of
the Festival) with a complete workflow covering all aspects of the production
including highlight packages, content management, integration with post
production and play-out. Moreover, XDC has selected VPS, a leading company in daylight video walls, to
install the giant video wall on the red carpet. Together with their high
expertise in the most advanced digital technologies, both XDC and EVS will offer
the opportunity to thousands of movie-goers and millions of TV viewers to join
the stars at this red carpet event.
