The 63rd annual Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) rose its curtain on February 7 to bring filmmakers from all around the world together to show 890 films across a variety of categories to 250,000 film lovers. For the second year, Fraunhofer IIS’ Department of Moving Picture Technologies was selected as the go-to digital cinema technical expert for the events.
As the global tally of digital cinema rises, more and more festival entries are being submitted in the digital cinema film format. However, for smaller production companies in particular, producing these digital cinema packages (DCPs) is no easy task. To help, scientists from Fraunhofer IIS provided their expertise to the Berlinale to assist in technical quality control, so that every film submission could have its moment of glory on the big screen.
Experts from the Fraunhofer IIS in Erlangen were involved in the 2012 Berlinale as well, helping the festival’s technical team behind the scenes to ensure that all the technology worked without a hitch. This successful collaboration between the Berlinale and Fraunhofer IIS continued in 2013. Fraunhofer experts were on hand since the start of the international film festival to offer immediate help in the event of any problems with the digital cinema packages, to correct any errors and to get films ready to be shown to eager audiences.
The international film festival – a formidable challenge
“We’re very pleased that this year we are once again putting our specialist know-how to good effect for one of the landmark international film festivals of 2013,” said Heiko Sparenberg, head of the Department of Moving Picture Technologies at Fraunhofer IIS. “This chance to work with filmmakers is extremely important to us, as it allows us to learn in even more detail exactly what the film industry wants and needs, especially for film festivals, and to make sure these requirements carry over into our work developing the necessary technologies.”
Fraunhofer IIS – a trusted partner of the film industry
In addition to its work with Berlinale, Fraunhofer IIS was commissioned by Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI), a joint venture of the Hollywood majors Fox, Sony, Paramount Pictures, The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Entertainment GmbH, to produce an initial compliance test plan for digital cinema systems.
