How Nitrate Film Adds Danger To The BFI FIlm Festival

Forbes

05-06-2025

The NFT1 at the BFI Southbank where the BFI Film on Film Festival will be running from 12th-15th ... More June 2025.
If you enter the foyer of the BFI on the London Southbank from the 12th to 15th of June 2025, you'll be confronted with a mechanical machine sporting a large lens at one end and large round disks on the other. This, of course, will be a film projector, complete with platters that contained film—the material that, when light was passed through them, enabled the magic contained inside them to be projected onto the big screen.
While most cinemagoers today would expect their films to be projected digitally, it was only around the 2010s that this became mainstream. For the first 120 years before this, all movies were projected from film, so there's an irony that for many, it will be the first time they will have seen a film projector.
'We thought it'd be fun, because people don't often get to see that kind of thing,' Dominic Simmons, the head of cinema technology, told me on a visit to the BFI Southbank ahead of the festival.
Indeed, this is exactly why there is a space for the BFI to run its now bi-annual Film on Film festival (it first ran in 2023), enabling cineastes, or even regular folk, to see movies on a format that is now exceptional in every sense.
The festival program includes screenings in various formats, from 8mm to 70mm, and 35mm nitrate, to black and white Cinemascope. As has been widely reported, headlining the festival are two showings of an original 1977 release print of Star Wars, sans the 'Episode: IV: A New Hope' subtitle that was only added in 1981, and, of course, the Special edition 'enhancements'. Furthermore, it's a high-quality dye transfer IB Technicolor print, an expensive format that offers the best image quality and the greatest durability, so something special for the lucky few that get to see it.
Other highlights include a 35mm print of The Killing, Stanley Kubrick's first feature from Kubrick's personal print collection, and a showing of his masterwork, 2001: A Space Odyssey, on the greatest possible film format, IMAX 70mm.
What's unique about the festival, though, is that it will provide the opportunity to see movies on nitrate, which was the film stock used from the beginnings of cinema in the 1890s up until 1951, when manufacturing ceased. It stopped making it for two good reasons. First, it is chemically unstable, which causes it to degrade over time, and second, it is highly flammable and can spontaneously combust. In the past, it has done so, causing extensive damage and even loss of life.
Today, screenings of films on original nitrate stock are rare, but five films will be screened at the BFI during the festival. This includes the oldest nitrate film print ever screened to a UK audience, Un Chien Andalou, Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali's iconic 1929 surrealist classic, screening with Jean Renoir's Partie de campagne, which was released in 1946, but made in 1936.
Today, the majority of films created on nitrate simply no longer exist, and those that do have to be carefully stored. However, thanks to the dedication of BFI staff such as Dominic Simmons, its head of cinema technology, the BFI is one of the few institutions that not only has an archive that carefully preserves Nitrate film but also has the capability of projecting it safely.
The two projectors inside the booth at the NFT1, which, with its 1960s era dials and buttons, resembles an early TARDIS console room, are classics of their kind—two Philips DP70s, which can play both 35mm and 70mm film. A pair is essential, Simmons explained, so that reels can be swapped without recourse to having the entire film on platters, which, while easier for projectionists, require film reels to be spliced together, which can lead to damage.
Dials, buttons and switches give the interior of the NFT1 booth a wonderfully 1960s feel.
In 2021, the fire suppression equipment for nitrate film was reinstated after a change in projectors. This isn't because it's a legal requirement—you are allowed to show Nitrate movies without it, but Simmons says the BFI has 'that extra level of caution' in case the worst should happen.
The equipment consists of canisters containing Novec 1230, an inert liquid, which, in the event of a fire, would flood the projectors, suppressing the flames, while shutters would also automatically drop down to isolate the booth from the auditorium.
If, for some reason, this didn't happen automatically, the projectionists can also hit the large stop button on the projector to stop the film. Furthermore, there's the fact that the booth's walls are constructed of Durasteel.
Ironically, as this was installed many years ago, asbestos, which is known for its fire-resistant properties. While this might be good in terms of fire protection, due to the serious health risk it poses, asbestos has been banned for new builds for many years. As Simmons explains, this is why nothing can ever be removed from the walls of the NFT1 booth, in case it disturbs the dangerous material underneath the Durasteel. This explains why the interior of the booth appears to be, much like a film print itself, locked in a moment in time.
While some might worry about all the precautions needed to show nitrate, Simmons noted that the last time a nitrate film fire occurred at the BFI Southbank (then the National Film Theatre) was in 1968, and while the booth was damaged, no one was hurt. Indeed, I note that the report on the BFI website seems more concerned with the fact that in the same year at the NFT, Jean-Luc Godard started a punch-up.
The two Philips DP70 projectors in situ in the BFI Southbank NFT1 booth.
He admitted, however, that there was an element of stress in running a nitrate print with 450 people in the audience to worry about. This is why, to ensure things go smoothly, there is a team of twelve projectionists working in shifts over the four days of the festival.
'You've got to make sure you're in the right headspace to do it,' he says, 'because you need to be concentrating all the time.'
When it comes to choosing which nitrate films to show in the festival program, a shortlist is drawn up by James Bell, senior curator at the BFI National Archive and programme director for Film on Film, and the wider team. Before this can be done, however, the BFI has to be sure that the print is suitable for exhibition.
As most of the 43,000 nitrate prints stored in the BFI's master film store in Warwickshire have been in storage for decades, each possible selection must be manually checked first. As the BFI's curatorial archivist Sonia Genaitay explained to me, this is a complex and time-consuming process.
Just as projecting nitrate is challenging, their delicate nature means that storing them safely in the archive is equally difficult. To protect them, they are stored at minus five degrees, and before a print can be examined, it must be acclimatized. To avoid the buildup of potentially damaging condensation, this must be done gradually by thawing it out over 24 hours.
They are then transported to the Berkhamsted conservation center, where their condition is examined for deterioration. A key issue is shrinkage, as this could make it unsafe to project. If any strain is placed on the perforations, it could tear inside the projector. Genaitay says that on average, they look at 8-10 prints before finding one good enough to reach the next stage—testing on an actual projector.
The candidate is then cleaned up using ultrasonic machines, and then image quality specialists are brought in to decide if it makes the grade, as what looks good on the bench might not when projected. A key aspect is the number of previous splices, as too many risk the film jumping inside the projector, which again could lead to a break. It's also only at this stage that the sound can be checked, which is another factor that might render it unusable. All in all, Genaitay says finding and getting the five prints for the festival was a six-month process.
Speaking to Genaitay, it was clear that this was a labor of love, however, and she says that she'd watch all four of the nitrates 'over and over again'. Of the four, her favorite is Blanche Fury, describing it as 'one of the most amazing titles in the programme,' due to its 'just perfect,' rich, dye-transfer technicolor print.
While she says that's the one to watch, Genaitay also encourages everyone to see a black and white nitrate title too, if they can, such as Dancing with Crime, starring Richard Attenborough. 'To see a nitrate which is silver-rich on the screen? It's quite incredible.'
So, while battling dangers, whether they in a galaxy far, far away, or in the projection booth a few meters away, with every screening of each special print, the Film on Film Festival is, for a few fleeting moments, shining a flickering light onto a unique piece of our celluloid past.