When we go to the cinema we do seem to take things for granted and when changes happen we only seem to comment what we see in front of us if you like to say 'shop floor'. The ticket prices, snack prices, atmosphere of the cinema screen, quality of the film but everytime we do this we do forget probably the most important person....The projectionist. He or she is responsible of setting up the magic we pay to watch enfold in front of us but if your a lover of film (or cinephile as we call them at Cine and The People's Movies) they are also going through drastic changes thanks to the digital age.
35mm is dying been replaced by digital films, you could say it's the end of film, as many old films are too fragile to be transferred, you may not know if your local cinema has changed but where is 35mm film still running? Good question, Ridwaan Fridie, a projectionist from South Africa still is living the dream and he is the subject of Philip Bloom's fantastic short film documentary Portrait Of A Projectionist.
Portrait of Ridwaan Fridie. A film projectionist in the Labia theatre in Cape Town, South Africa for the past 24 years but with big changes on the horizon where does that leave Ridwaan?
If you love film in every way this short doc will go down a treat.
Portrait of a projectionist from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.
source:Firstshowing