I used to be a projectionist back in in college. Carbon arc projectors in a 1300 seat student concert/convocation hall. Being a radio guy, I fretted over ways to improve the sound. But keeping those blinding white light carbon rods burning evenly between reels was a real art form.

Learned a lot about editing, pacing, story structure and the like by where story beats fell on the reel, just before changeovers often times.

This trailer has a lovely voice-over poem by Toby Jones here about the illusion of cinema, the spell cast by aiming light through celluloid.

Sam Mendes (“1917”) makes a movie about the magic of the movies.

Olivia Colman, Colin Firth, Michael Ward and Toby Jones star in this 1980s period piece, a December release from Searchlight pictures.

Awards. Bait. And “only in cinemas.”