Newtown Theatre To Screen “Film is Dead. Long Live Film!”

NEWTOWN, PA — The historic Newtown Theatre will screen “Film is Dead. Long Live Film!” on Thursday, May 16 at 7:30 p.m. The documentary includes an interview with Lou DiCrescenzo, a long-time Newtown Theatre projectionist who recently passed away.

“Film is Dead. Long Live Film!” explores the vanishing world of private film collecting – an obsessive, secretive, often-illicit world of basement film vaults, piled high with forgotten reels, and inhabited by passionate cinephiles devoted to the rescue and preservation of photochemical film.

Condemned as pirates and hounded by the FBI, film collectors have long lurked in the shadows. Yet their efforts have resulted in the survival of countless films that would otherwise have been lost to history. Archives and studios now look to private hands for missing titles and many collectors have begun restoring and releasing films themselves. As analog film fades from memory, the basement dwellers and bootleggers of old are finally being given their due.

“Film is Dead. Long Live Film!” is a lively tribute to the private film collector, a celebration of the fetishistic subculture of pre-video movie love, and a timely reminder of the glories of analog film.

Doors open at 7 p.m. with the film starting at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available only at the theatre box office starting 30 minutes before the movie starts. The cost is $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and students, and $6 for Newtown Theatre members and children 12 and younger. All tickets are general admission. Members should be prepared to present their membership card at the door.