A small boy gazes with joy and awe at a translucent strip of film he holds up to the light - it's an iconic frame from Cinema Paradiso, whose story finds a big-time director reflecting on his childhood friendship with the local cinema projectionist: a relationship that sparked the genesis of his fascination with the moving image.
The shot helped capture the imagination of the Academy of Motion Picture: Cinema Paradiso won an Oscar back in 1990. Somewhere between today and tomorrow, though, the movie industry's fondness for film – in its physical form at least – will indeed become little more than the stuff of nostalgia.
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