Iranian producer Ali Sartipi has signed a contract with theater development vice president at IMAX Corporation John Schreiner to construct the first IMAX cinema in Iran.
Sartipi, also the managing director of Filmiran International Institute, closed the deal with the IMAX official in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Saturday, Cinetmag.com reported.
“Based on the agreement, the first IMAX hall will be built in Tehran next year,” Sartipi said, hoping for the initiative to prove effective and help with the growth of Iranian cinema.
IMAX (an acronym for Image MAXimum) is a motion picture film format and a set of cinema projection standards created by the Canadian company IMAX Corporation. It has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems. Since 2002, some feature films have been converted (or upgraded) into IMAX format for displaying in IMAX theatres and some have also been partially shot in IMAX.
The increased resolution in IMAX theatres allows the audience to be much closer to the screen; typically all rows are within one screen height; conventional theatre seating runs 8 to 12-screen heights. Also, the rows of seats are set at a steep angle (up to 30° in some domed theatres) so that the audience is facing the screen directly.
A standard IMAX screen is 22m×16.1m but can be significantly larger. At present, there are 1000 IMAX theatres in 62 countries.
During the past years, Sartipi has also contributed to building cinema halls in Iran. He founded Kourosh Cineplex in the west of Tehran last year. With 14 halls and 2800 seats, the cineplex uses the state-of-the-art digital audio and video equipment, and is thus the best cinema hall in the capital.
He also renovated Shokoufeh Cinema in eastern Tehran in 2009. Operating with three halls, it is a popular hub in the neighborhood. Sartipi owns several cinemas in other cities as well.
On his return to Tehran, he will begin the preliminary work for construction of the IMAX hall. “I wish it can be a harbinger for building more cinemas in the country,” he said.
Founded in 1968, the IMAX Corporation is a Canadian theatre company which designs and manufactures IMAX cameras and projection systems as well as performing film development, production, post production and distribution to IMAX affiliated theatres worldwide.
Filmiran, established in 2004 in Tehran, has operated in various cinematic fields including film advertising, duplication and distribution as well as equipping movie theaters. To broaden its range of activities, it has opened two offices in London and Paris.
Sartipi, 54, has produced six movies so far. Two of his productions ‘No Men Allowed’ directed by Rambod Javan and ‘City of Mice 2’ by Marizeh Boroumand have been among the top ten hits at the box office in Iran.
