What’s in a millimeter? Reel film is now playing in cinemas across KC

Courtesy Screenland

You’ve probably noticed film is having a moment here in Kansas City. I’m not talking about movies and TV shows shooting here (though it was pretty cool when the Ted Lasso crew showed up for a day outside The Pitch offices on the Plaza). I mean film reels. Kansas City has joined a growing list of places where you can regularly catch movies on film, the way they were shown prior to the big digital conversion of the early 2010s.

Courtesy Screenland

“Watching film feels like a memory,” Adam Roberts, the owner of Screenland Armour Theater, says. “There’s a post-pandemic culture of folks now who want those analog experiences, and movies are one of the most affordable ways of entertainment to do that.”

Roberts and the Screenland team recently reinstalled film projection in the building’s main theater, over a decade after they converted to digital-only projection. That switch was made out of necessity, following the model of independent and chain theaters across the country to accommodate changing distribution methods. Most large-scale theaters, including Screenland, now use DCP (Digital Cinema Package) projectors, which allow a studio to send an encrypted digital file of a film directly to the projector to show it on a screen, with little human involvement required.

“When we took over Screenland, essentially, there were no more movies on film,” Roberts says. “If you wanted a print, you were paying to have that print made. You were paying $3,500 for a movie that might make $1,000 in box office returns. Digital was essentially free. For us, there was no other choice; we had to do it. It was do or die.”

A recent resurgence of interest in physical film and analog projection across the country inspired Roberts to consider bringing film projection back to the theater. Since re-installing projection for 70mm and 35mm film, he says the response has been enthusiastic. At the time we spoke, Screenland was preparing for a sold-out weekend of 70mm screenings of Ryan Coogler’s Sinners.

“I’ve had the most interactions of the 14 years I’ve run the theater,” Roberts says, “All the way from people saying ‘Thank you for bringing film back to Kansas City,’ or ‘I typically have to travel to see a movie in a different format.’ I get responses in person and online from a lot of people.”

Screenland’s film renaissance is part of a growing interest in film across all formats, from 8mm home movies to 16mm grindhouse classics all the way to epic widescreen 70mm projection. Local theaters and individual collectors, encouraged by the “see it on film” rallying cries of directors like Paul Thomas Anderson and Christopher Nolan, are re-incorporating film projection into their repertoire, and sharing prints with a growing group of eager viewers.

What’s in a millimeter?

Courtesy Screenland

If you’re new to watching film on film, or you’ve simply never needed to differentiate between formats, it can be daunting to parse through what different film stocks mean related to your viewing experience. What’s the difference between 16, 35 and 70mm film? Is one better than the other? And what’s the difference between seeing something on film and seeing it digitally?

Courtesy Screenland

Due to the cost of film stock and equipment, most contemporary films (everything from Marvel movies to ultra-independent films) are shot digitally. Some filmmakers like Coogler, Nolan, Anderson, Jordan Peele and Quentin Tarantino prefer to shoot on film. Those movies are either exhibited on film in specialty screenings or scanned and converted to digital.

“Film has a texture and life to it that you don’t get from a digital projection,” Allison Lloyd, a filmmaker and programmer at Stray Cat Film Center, says. “People talk a lot about the imperfections of films, but even baked into the physics of it, film operates differently. Digital projection is like scanned lines and refreshing pixels that your brain constructs into images. With film, once every 24th of a second, you’re being shown a complete image.”

Roberts relates a Screenland theatergoer’s shocked reaction to seeing a digital projection of Project Hail Mary shortly after having seen Sinners projected on 70mm.

“They said it looks so different that it almost doesn’t look like a real movie, but like TV in a way,” Roberts says. “It’s a perfect imperfection is what film is. Every screening is going to have a specific change because it breaks down a little with each use, but on the first run it looks better than digital could ever look because it has that analog quality.”

The primary difference between film formats lies in the size of the print. 70mm film is a specialty large format used mainly to shoot grand epics (in addition to Sinners, which was shot on 70mm IMAX, think of Lawrence of Arabia or West Side Story). That larger film means sharper images and more detail, even more so than you’d get with digital projection. Before film showings at Screenland, Roberts often holds up 35mm and 70mm film stock so audiences can see the considerable difference in the print size for themselves.

The next size, 35mm, was the industry standard for showing films until digital conversion. If you grew up seeing movies projected on film at your local theater, this is probably the format you saw. It’s also the most common format for repertory screenings. Screenland shows both 35 and 70mm films.

At other independent theaters in Kansas City and Lawrence, curious viewers can check out movies on 16mm film. Prior to digital filmmaking, 16mm was the stock of choice for experimental and independent filmmakers due to its relative affordability. This is the film stock you probably think of when you imagine old educational films or 1970s grindhouse movies—a little grainy and gritty.

It’s not the classiest format, but that’s what makes it fun, according to filmmaker and 16mm collector Austin Snell. In addition to an extensive personal collection of film prints, Snell shot his 2024 grindhouse-inspired western They Call Her Death on 16mm.

“It’s so charming because it’s not what most people think of when they say ‘I used to see movies in the theater,’ Snell says. “The scratches and hairs and dirt are more visible. But it has the charm of arthouse and grindhouse that 35mm doesn’t have.”

16mm madness

Courtesy Austin Snell

Snell originally got into collecting 16mm films during the pandemic. “We were all facing our potential mortality then, and I had a lot of downtime on my hands. I thought, what would be exciting to do? What have you always wanted?” Snell says. “I thought it’d be cool to have a mini movie theater in my basement and project movies.”

Courtesy Screenland

What started as a personal collection and screenings for friends grew into a library of 50 features, plus additional shorts and documentaries, and showings of prints at area theaters like Liberty Hall and Stray Cat, which shows 16mm prints about once a month. Snell has shown movies ranging from the gory 1980 grindhouse classic Shogun Assassin to, surprisingly, Wes Craven’s Scream.

“It’s very rare to see a movie like that on 16mm. The reasons that would’ve been made in the first place, we could only speculate on where it came from, but it’s probably a really interesting story,” Lloyd, who showed Snell’s print to a sold-out crowd at Stray Cat, says. “I love Scream, and I’ve seen it a million times, but there were things I was noticing in the image I’d never seen before.”

Inspired by Snell, Lloyd also got into collecting 16mm prints. The journey led to some unexpected windfalls, as when a couple dropped off a box of unclaimed prints they’d found in their apartment complex’s basement.

“Once you become known as a weird film person in town, all of a sudden people call you and say, ‘I found a thing in my basement, do you want it?’” Lloyd jokes.

In this case, the answer was a resounding yes—the box of mystery reels included a print of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was originally shot on 65mm and projected on 70mm on its release in 1968. The downgraded format, Lloyd says, amplified the tactile nature of the medium in a way that felt like going back in time.

“Watching 2001 on 16mm is like ‘What if you went to a Times Square two-screen theater in the 70s that had Deep Throat on one screen and this on the other?’” Lloyd says. “It’s scratchy and faded and shaky and that’s fun to me. It’s nice to have that transportive feeling.”

The future of film exhibition in KC

Courtesy Austin Snell

While the physical film renaissance has been compared to popular resurgence of vinyl records, Snell says that in reality, the love of the medium among cinephiles is a little more intense.

“I think people feel like they had something taken away from them, and they’re fighting harder to get it back,” Snell says. “Vinyl is a pretty solitary experience. You’re listening at home. It’s different when you talk about spaces where people used to gather in large groups.”

The popular appetite for film has come a long way from the immediate post-conversion years when it was possible to find reels of classic films in dumpsters behind a studio lot, and it’s only gaining more love, Snell says.

“I’m super happy that even out here in Kansas and Missouri, people are getting on board,” he says. “The Stray Cat programming was such a big deal to me and Allison because we thought we were sustaining something that would never come back, but here we are.”

As for future plans for film at Screenland, the future is very bright. The theater will show Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated The Odyssey this summer on 70mm, accompanied by a Nolan retrospective that includes The Prestige and The Dark Knight on 35mm, and Inception, Interstellar and Tenet on 70mm. Roberts has high hopes to show Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day and Robert Eggers’ Werewulf on 70mm, in addition to a laundry list of exciting repertory titles on 35 and 70.

Courtesy Screenland

The transition hasn’t been without its quirks, Roberts says, but it’s been totally worth the investment.

“When you do something like this, you hope it’s good for your business and not a $120,000 mistake, and it hasn’t been so far,” Roberts says. “It’s gonna take a long time for all of us to get it perfect, but every show I’ve introduced, I have people saying thank you, people ecstatic and glowing.”

Lloyd says she’s excited to have such a wide variety of film formats to watch theatrically for the first time in over a decade.

“The fact that 35 and 70 are back in Kansas City is wonderful to me,” Lloyd says, noting that the theater’s recent 70mm run of One Battle After Another left her in tears. “I’m over the moon about it. I love film and I can’t wait to see even more of it in this city.”