The Grand Illusion

"FILM IS DEAD!" - The mantra that accompanied the dawn of the digital projection age. But was it really true? Ten years ago it was clear to those who worked with film that the digital experience wasn't remotely the same thing. So as the debate and the comparisons raged on, Rob Murphy decided to ask the people who would really know: his fellow projectionists. Does film have a future and how will our treasured movie memories live on? The projectionist underground is a passionate, clandestine world, and over time, Murphy came to realize that this affected community wasn't just collecting film memorabilia, they were saving titles from extinction. Legacy cinema is facing a largely unknown digital danger. We may be the last generation to be able to experience great cinema as it was meant to be seen... on film.

SPLICE HERE is a love letter to the craft of film projection and to cinema in general. Director Rob Murphy travels across multiple countries interviewing long-time projectionists, film collectors, archivists, and film lovers who recount tales of Cinerama projection, explosive nitrate, lost film prints, and more. Featuring, among many others, Quentin Tarantino, Leonard Maltin, Dan Halsted (head programmer of Portland’s renowned Hollywood Theater), and the late cinematic visionary Douglas Trumbull.

“Less of a nostalgia-fest than it is an appreciation of a craft rarely acknowledged, Splice Here is an ode to the innovation of our most plastic art.” Tara Judah, Senses of Cinema

“A magnificent homage to film!” Douglas Trumbull