02/12/2010

All commercial cinema screens in the Netherlands will have digital projection possibilities by next year, thanks to an ambitious conversion plan that unites state aid and several organizations of the private distribution and exploitation sectors.

The €38m project will start placing its first digital projectors next month and should be completed by the summer of 2012. There are 242 cinemas in the Netherlands with a total of 751 screens, of which 201 are currently already equipped with 2K projectors.

The entire conversion project is handled by the ad hoc Stichting Digitalisering Nederlandse Cinema (“Foundation for the Digitalisation of Dutch cinema”), which has been founded by the NVB, the cinema owners’ network; the Dutch film distributors organisation NVF and EYE Film Institute. The project is partially state funded (at around 14%) with money from both the Dutch Film Fund and ICT budgets.

The business plan and financing of the project was developed in less than two years and is based on the Virtual Print Fee model, with the distributors delivering their copies to the cinemas digitally.

The Netherlands, which has a unique combination of large-scale multiplexes and smaller arthouses that function as an alternative circuit, will thus very likely be the first country in Europe to have a fully digitised distribution and projection model.