Making their ninth appearance as invited guests to England’s National Media Museum (NMM), PRO-TEK Still Archives Manager Randy Gitsch and his production partner, Dave Strohmaier, will participate in the Museum’s annual Widescreen Weekend film festival, October 15-18, 2015 in Bradford, England. They will give a special presentation on Cinerama and widescreen cinema to area school children on October 15.
After the festival, the duo will travel to Denmark and Sweden for additional showings.
Cinerama, Todd AO and Technirama-70 Film Showings
Gitsch and Strohmaier will be premiering their latest digital reconstruction of a formerly lost motion picture, “THE BEST OF CINERAMA” (1962). This triptych is a montage of highlights from all of the three-panel Cinerama travelogues and is the last motion picture to be produced by motion picture pioneer Merian C. Cooper.
Additional restored films to be shown by the duo will include the 70mm Todd AO picture, “HOLIDAY IN SPAIN” (1961), and the Super Technirama-70 short subject, “SHELLARAMA” (1965). All will be shown in the event’s Pictureville Theater.
This year’s event is dedicated to the Todd AO process, a high-resolution, widescreen film format that required only a single camera and lens, developed in the early 1950s to compete with Cinerama, which used three separate strips of film photographed simultaneously.
From England to Denmark and Sweden
Following their Bradford, England appearance, Gitsch and Strohmaier will travel to Copenhagen, Denmark. As guests of the Danish Film Institute (DFI) they will present a series of seven digitally re-mastered titles from the Cinerama vaults, reprising their April 2015 European Cinerama Festival Tour in Germany.
While showing in the Cinemateket Theater in Copenhagen, they will traverse the Øresund Bridge between Danish Zealand and Malmö, Sweden, to do a parallel run in that city’s Panora Theater. The Scandinavian showings in these two cities will run from October 20-25.
Our previous screenings in England, Germany, Poland, Austria, Norway and Denmark have pulled fans old and new so we’re confident we’ll see more European enthusiasts on this junket, says Gitsch.
Sweden’s 2015 European Cinerama Festival Tour event website (in Swedish).
Denmark’s 2015 European Cinerama Festival Tour event website (in Danish).
In total, sixteen Cinerama screenings are scheduled between the three venues. All films have been re-mastered, recombined and put into the Smilebox® letterbox to simulate a curved screen viewing experience, as overseen by restoration expert Strohmaier. Gitsch has re-copyrighted each of these new motion picture versions for the public exhibitions.
Flicker Alley will be releasing “THE BEST OF CINERAMA” in 2016 in DVD/Blu-ray combo packs. All other Cinerama triptychs are currently in release by Flicker Alley. “HOLIDAY IN SPAIN” is currently in release by Screen Archives Entertainment.