Irish Film Institute -OPPENHEIMER ON 70MM AT THE IFI

OPPENHEIMER ON 70MM AT THE IFI

June 27th 2023: The Irish Film Institute (IFI) is proud to present Christopher Nolan’s historical, biographical epic, Oppenheimer, in luminous 70mm, from Friday, July 21st. As the only venue in Ireland with 70mm film projection capabilities, the IFI is honoured to screen the thriller of the summer on one of Nolan’s own preferred large formats.


Nolan directed Oppenheimer from his own screenplay, with filming taking place from February – May 2022 on IMAX 65mm and 65mm large-format film. The film’s ensemble cast includes Cillian Murphy as the eponymous J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Manhattan Project and father of the atomic bomb, Emily Blunt as Katherine ‘Kitty’ Oppenheimer, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Robert Downey Jr., Dylan Arnold, and Josh Hartnett, amongst others including Bennie Safdie and Gary Oldman.

Speaking about presenting another Nolan release on 70mm, Head of IFI Cinema Programming David O’Mahony said, ‘We are delighted and honoured to present Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer on 70mm film, the director’s preferred screening format, exclusively at Irish Film Institute. IFI is the only venue in Ireland where audiences will have the opportunity to experience the film exactly as the director intended.’

Based on Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Nolan weaves a dual narrative throughout Oppenheimer, exploring his era-defining role as director of the Manhattan Project in New Mexico, where he led a crack team of scientists to develop an atomic bomb before Germany did so first, while looking ahead to the Cold War period, when Oppenheimer’s ambiguous pre-war Communist associations led him to be harassed, interrogated, and ultimately humiliated in a series of hearings led by the relentlessly red-baiting Lewis Strauss (played by Downey Jr.).

Oppenheimer was produced by Nolan, Charles Roven, and Emma Thomas. Editing on the film is by Jennifer Lame, who edited Tenet, with visual effects done by DNEG in their eighth collaboration with the director.

Previous 70mm screenings at the IFI have included Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, and Nolan’s own Dunkirk and Tenet.

Tickets to these special large format screenings cost €15.00, free list suspended. Tickets on sale now: www.ifi.ie/film/oppenheimer-70mm/

Tickets to the Fallout season, screening July 1st – 30th in parallel with Oppeheimer, are on sale now: www.ifi.ie/fallout/

IFI is principally funded by the Arts Council.

ABOUT THE IFI
The Irish Film Institute is Ireland’s national cultural institution for film. It provides audiences throughout Ireland with access to the finest independent, Irish and international cinema. It preserves and promotes Ireland’s moving image heritage through the IFI Irish Film Archive, and provides opportunities for audiences of all ages and backgrounds to learn and critically engage with film.

ABOUT 70MM
A 70mm film is a cinema print in which each frame is 70mm wide, containing 65mm wide visual image, with the remaining 5mm containing the soundtrack strips. Optimal results, in terms of resolution and picture quality, are achieved when material is shot on 65mm stock and then printed onto 70mm. However, due to the cost of shooting on this format, many 70mm prints are so-called “blow-ups”, which originated on 35mm stock. This is not the case with the IFI’s presentation of Oppenheimer.

Despite the remarkable audiovisual experience offered by 70mm films, which can still surpass the best of what digital cinema has to offer, there are a limited number of “true” 70mm films. Even within the prints available internationally there are a finite number which remain in a condition that best shows off the format.

However, as the only cinema in the country capable of showing films on 70mm, IFI holds regular screenings of the best of what is currently available, and we encourage anyone with an interest in film to experience it for themselves.

IFI CINEMAS TODAY


The IFI is supported
by The Arts Council

Arts Council of Ireland