"From June 2011 up to today the Polish Film Institute has allocated 3.5 million euros to co-financing the digitalization of a hundred or so screens belonging to art-house circuits, with the aim of ensuring that even in the country’s small and medium-sized towns there is a varied offer of quality cinema," stated Renata Pawlowska-Pyra, responsible for the project, whilst presenting the main features of cinema-going in Poland.

To date, the initiative has thus made it possible for the new technology to be adopted even in theatres not belonging to the big circuits - Multikino, Helios and Cinema City - who had already completed their transition to digital by mid-2012. Using funds collected by the PISF from the box-offices of all cinemas, up to now the initiative has achieved its prime objective of preventing theatres with a mainly social and cultural vocation from being relegated to the far edges of the market.

This approach aroused particular interest amongst the course participants and in particular those coming from countries where the exhibitors feel a need for similar measures to be adopted, such as Greece or Bosnia Herzegovina.
The impending disappearance of 35mm is of particular concern on this type of market, where the rate of digitalization is below the European average.
In Bosnia Herzegovina, for example, the rate of digitalization has only recently reached 50% of screens: here - according to professional players - the radical modernization hoped for in the sector should make it possible to increase pro-capita cinema-going, which today does not even amount to half a ticket per inhabitant.

The day continued with a session devoted to technology and with a significant title: "Everything that an exhibitor should know before buying a digital projector," held by Emidio Frattaroli, Director of the trade journal AV Magazine.
The talk encouraged a critical look at some topics of crucial interest for the quality of digital projection and met with a lot of interest amongst the participants.
"The projector’s resolution," concluded Frattaroli, "is not everything and there is no equipment that is suitable for every case. Screen width, the material the latter is made of and the performance required from the lamp on the basis of the type of screening (3D or not) are only some of the factors to take into consideration. Even the data given in the technical specifications for the various materials may prove not to work out in practice. This does not mean that they are false but that they are not always valid over time or, for example, obtainable under all conditions."

"The need to acquire a business culture and learn from experience and from the comparison of views is a message that also emerged from the case histories presented at the end of the morning sessions by Marco Fraschini, technical director of the Multiplex Le Giraffe (13 screens in the Milan suburban area) and Michael Tilios, head of market analysis for Odeon, which, with 58 screens, is one of Greece’s leading exhibition chains, also operating in the field of distribution. The visit to the Cinema City Bonarka - 20 screens in the shopping mall of the same name just outside Cracow - shifted the focus to content and in particular the innovative uses of digital projection, presented by Krzysztof Indyk, Manager of the Cinema City Poland for the Southern Region. This site, addressing mainly families and young audiences, proposes its own exclusive content, under the name Cinema Park, which aims to transform and give an active role to spectators, in particular "budding audiences". Based on the concept of teaching by entertaining, Cinema Park offers learning paths on topics such as Nature or the environment, involving the children in quizzes and interactive games or in screenings including sensorial experiences, for example in the music theatre or the one devoted to movement.

In the evening the course moved on to Cracow in anticipation of an intense program of visits to cinemas with very varied physiognomies and vocations, all having in common the adoption of digital technology.

Informamos a nuestros seguidores que hablan español que el compañero de la revista Cineinforme Antonio Roldán está cubriendo el curso DigiTraining en exclusiva para España.
Aqui pueden consultar sus articulos diarios: http://www.cineytele.com/noticia.php?nid=40368