XDC Makes Digital Breakthrough at The 61st Cannes Film Festival : 48 Motion Pictures - 100 Digital Screenings - 18 Digital Systems

http://www.digitalcinemainfo.com/xdc_05_14_08.php

 

May 14, 2008

 

Source: XDC

 

As the Official Partner of the Cannes Film Festival, XDC is providing all of the necessary equipment and expertise to support over 100 digital screenings including the parallel sections during the May competition, to more than 18 Cannes theatre rooms – including the famous Louis Lumière auditorium.

 

The Opening film, 13 long-feature films of the Official Selection, including 5 motion pictures in competition, the Beach Cinema which will be fully booked with 10 long-feature films and 10 cartoons, renewing 14 classic movies during Cannes Classics … XDC makes digital breakthrough during this 61st Festival, by implementing, under the technical supervision of the French CST, the most advanced digital projection technical solutions (and especially the roll out of its new JPEG2000 CineStore® Solo G3 server) and by offering to the cinema industry the best of the technology.

 

Bernard Collard, EVP & General Manager of XDC International: “XDC is very proud to be part again this year to Cannes Film 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 48 digital films – 61st Cannes Film Festival

 

Official Competition: “Blindness” (Opening Film), “Three Monkeys”, “24 City”, “Che”, “Palermo Shooting”, “De moins en moins”

Un Certain Regard: “Tyson”, “Tulpan”

Out of Competition: “Vicky Christina Barcelona”, “The Good, The Bad, The Weird”, « Kung Fu Panda »

Special Screenings: “Of Time and The City”, “C’est dur d’être aimé par des cons”

The President Screening: “The Third Wave”

Cannes Classics: “Guide”, “Let’s get Lost”, “Santa Sangre”, “This happy breed”, “The Passionate Friends, “Il était une fois … Lawrence d’Arabie”, “You must remember this”, “Lola Montes”, “No subtitles necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos”, “Fingers”, “Hanyo”, “Orphée”, “The Cinema Cinemas Collection”, « The Savage Eye »

Beach Cinema: “Enter The Dragon”, “I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang”, “What’s Up Doc?”,“Dirty Harry”, “Captain Blood”, “Bonnie and Clyde”, “Blazing Saddles”, “Matrix”, “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane ?”, 10 cartoons from the « Looney Tunes » collection, « Le mystère de Samba »

 

Installations to support the 100 digital screenings of the Festival

 

XDC has selected Christie as the exclusive Official Supplier of the digital projectors.

 

Film Festival: 7 Christie 2K DLP Cinema® projectors will be installed in the following auditoriums: Lumière, Debussy, Bazin, Buñuel, 60th Auditorium and the Beach Cinema.

Film Market : 2 Christie 2K DLP Cinema® projectors will be installed in Bory auditorium (which will also be used for 3D projections) et auditorium J while 8 Christie high definition DLP Standard projectors will equip the other HD video rooms.

To be highlighted this year: one 2K digital control room will be installed in the Palais des Festivals in order to check the digital copies.

D-Cinema JPEG2000 servers: CineStore® Solo G3 and Doremi DCP-2000.

 

About half of the digital films screened during Cannes Film Festival have been digitally processed in JPEG2000 format (by using a Doremi DMS-2000 mastering station) and quality controlled by the XDC Digital Content Lab. As Official Partner of the Festival and the Film Market, 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.”

 

Moreover, XDC has selected VPS, a leading company in daylight video walls, to install the giant video wall on the red carpet. Together, both XDC and VPS will offer the opportunity to thousands of movie-goers and millions of TV viewers to join the stars at this red carpet event.