Epson screened ”Planeta Petrila” throughout Romania using the EB-G6900WU

Film director Andrei Dăscălescu, known for showing two award-winning films at the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (IDFA) in 2008, and for his debut at the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) in 2009, recently scored a new success.

Planeta Petrila is an innovative documentary which captures footage from the last coal mining at the Petrila mine, before its final closure. The documentary blends the story of the mining company headed by Cătălin Cenuşă, looking for work after the closure with local community members including the artist Ion Barbu, an ex-miner himself, fighting the authorities for the preservation of the mine and its transformation into a museum.

After an international debut at IDFA in 2016, the film had national premiere at TIFF where it won the audience award. But director’s most burning desire was that the first national screening should be in Petrila, the subject town, especially because no film had been screened there for more than 20 years, after the last cinema in the city was closed during the economic downturn of the area. The promotional tour continued in other cities of the Valea Jiului mining area with stories similar to Petrila, but also in other single industry regions, most of them without cinemas. 

Epson supported ”Planeta Petrila Caravane” by providing a business video projector for the entire tour, helping the director to screen his movie in cultural and trade union houses and also outdoors throughout the country.

The project required equipment to render images to cinematic standards, bright enough for daytime projections in open spaces and on irregular surfaces, as well as being easy to install. The solution proposed by Epson was the EB-G6900WU business projector, featuring Epson's 3LCD technology and delivering an equally high White and Colour Light Output of 6,000 lumens, as well as WUXGA resolution. The Colour Uniformity function compensates for unequal colour distribution by adjusting the intensity of RGB on individual areas of the screen. Also, the image correction function for curved surfaces and wall corners made clear projection possible, even on irregular surfaces in improvised cinema spaces.  

Through this partnership, the film screening was made possible in seven cities (Petrila, Petroșani, București, Piatra-Neamț, Iași, Pitești, Tășuleasa), three out of seven being outdoor screenings. The versatility of the projector allowed an innovative set-up in a tree at Piatra Neamt, in the garden of the writer Calistrat Hogas's Memorial House. 

”I wished to take the cinema to cities like Petrila where there is no big screen for the public. I’ve staged the first screenings in Valea Jiului with almost 1000 viewers, in Petrila and Pietrosani, as a reward for community support during the three years of filming there. The experience with the video projector was very good, both in outdoor and indoor scenarios, displaying cinema quality images. I’ve had good feedback for the projection after each view,” says film director Andrei Dăscălescu.

Beyond film projection, ”Planeta Petrila Caravane” involved a photo exhibition with documentary images from underground, taken during film shooting. The director also wished to show this unique imagery to the great public.

Being a travelling exhibition, with exposure in a variety of spaces, high-quality prints were needed, with sun and moisture-resistant inks on durable paper. The solution proposed by Epson was an A3 format print using the SureColor SC-P800, the smallest large-format printer on the market that uses rolls of paper. The printer is very popular among professionals, from photographers and artists, to architects and print center specialists.

The ink used was Ultrachrome HD pigment with nine colors and vivid magenta to render rich colours and intense black shades specific to the underground landscape. The prints were made on Matte Posterboard. The exhibition enjoyed great success due to the unique miningimagery and also because of top print quality.

Planeta Petrila Caravane continues with film screenings at Electric Castle Musica Festival in Cluj (12–16th of July), the opening of the Ceao, cinema! film festival in Timisoara (20–23rd of July) and also the  Filmul de Piatra film festival, organized by Andrei Dăscălescuin Piatra Neamț (27–30th of July).