Mike Keegan

The Roxie's film projectors, installed in 1938 and still working.

By the end of 2012, the share of 35mm will decline to 37 percent of global cinema screens, with digital accounting for the remaining 63 percent. This represents a dramatic decline for 35mm, which was used in 68 percent of global cinema screens in 2010. In 2015, 35mm will be used in just 17 percent of global movie screens, relegating it to a niche projection format.

What does this mean for film lovers around the Bay? 

Susan Oxtoby, Senior Film Curator at The Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, says there is no need to panic: the PFA and other archives around the world will continue to show work on 35mm, as well as a host of other formats.

"That's our mission," said Oxtoby,"looking after the legacy of film and all moving image."

Mike Keegan, Special Event Programmer at San Francisco's Roxie Theater, which plays both first run and repertory titles, is less sanguine: the switch from film to digital means theaters will spend more money for a format that isn't necessarily better. 

"The blind march away from 35mm is economic homicide perpetuated by the cabal of major film studios—the costs inherent in switching-out facilities is astronomical, leaving small theaters around the countries scrambling to find a way to pay for these mandated changes."

Oxtoby notes that the life-expectancy of digital formats is an issue as well.

"A lot of non-profits are not running to DCP [Digital Cinema Projection]...We do our best, but film projectors last for 50 years, whereas digital systems become outdated after four or five."

The PFA mission requires it to keep devices that can play every sort of format from past to present, and Oxtoby notes that, "If artists are making work intended for digital exhibition and it's shown that way, then nothing is lost. It's exciting."

Keegan laments the loss of 35mm as "...a global standard of presentation. There is currently no global standard of this digital mandate." But despite his hesitancy, he does acknowledges the possibilities of DCP: "There is something very liberating about the democracy of digital presentation—a burned DVD from some teenager in Northern California weighs as much as, say, a copy of 'Jack and Jill'."

What about film projectors?

Well the PFA still uses its original two 35mm projectors, bought forty years ago.

The Roxie goes further, as Keegan explains: "We use projectors that were installed in 1938 and still work perfectly...these two workhorses run on carbon-arc, as opposed to xenon. According to the UCLA Film & Television Archive, the Roxie is one of only three theaters left in the country running this byzantine method."