ATL Film Festival steps in to aid Plaza Theater

Announced Sunday night, the Atlanta Film Festival will be taking over operations at the Plaza Theater. The Plaza announced last fall that it was in desperate need of additional funds.

The vintage repertory cinema was seeking new ownership in the face of the prohibitively expensive cost of converting the theater to digital screening formats, a necessary move as studios are not only ceasing the production of film prints, but also going so far as to destroy film archives.

"We have a phase plan," Escoboar explains. "The Plaza has not only not had full digital capabilities, they haven't had the proper HD digital projection." Theaters are being forced into a two-part DCP system, a digital process that grabs films from the Internet and plays them through special (ie, expensive) projectors that boast a resolution higher than HD. According to Escoboar, "Theaters are being shoved into doing this so that the distributors can save on printing and shipping costs of film that can cost $5,000 a piece to make and more to ship around the country. They're forcing the conversion for their own benefit and not helping anyone do it." Christopher Escoboar is the the ATLFF365 executive director.

Conveniently, the ATL Film Festival has access to many of these needed projectors and technologies that can be stored (and used) at the Plaza. It's certainly not an ideal solution, but this partnership could blossom into a successful one.

Help save the Plaza.

via CLatl