UK plans for digital cinema
According to The Times a network of 250 digital movie screens will be installed in cinemas nationwide to show critically acclaimed films that struggle to compete with the mainstream Hollywood fare.
The UK Film Council will establish the world's first digital screen network, at a cost of £13 million, it announced yesterday at the Cannes Film Festival.
State-of-the-art technology will cut the cost of distributing films and widen the repertoire offered in cinemas to include foreign language films and classics from the archives. A 35mm copy of a film costs at least £1,000, compared with digital copies at less than £100.
At the moment, less than 7 per cent of releases in Britain are specialised films such as foreign-language and documentary features. In return for being provided with the technology, the council will ask cinemas to earmark a proportion of screening time for specialised films.