Dubai Film Festival 2009

Audience members at the sixth edition of the Dubai International Film Festival watched premiers on a ShowTex movie screen. Decorative soft goods and movie screens in all 2009 festival venues were provided by ShowTex Middle East.

DIFF's rich collection of 168 films is spread between two premieres - the Opening Gala of the all-star Nine and the Closing Gala on December 15 of James Cameron's Avatar. Both the Madinat Arena, one of Dubai's largest venues and the Madinat Souk Theatre accommodate festival audiences this year. The heavily occupied sound and lighting grid posed quite a challenge when fitting the curtain tracks. A perfect job for the dedicated ShowTex installation team. Two U-shaped 50 meter long curved ShowTracks and two more L-Shaped ShowTracks curtain track systems of 50 meters were installed. Tracks, powered by ShowTex Rope Drive motors, operated all the Filled Cloth scrim cyclorama fabric measuring 250 m². This extremely flexible type of scrim is great for reflecting light and projection and drapes much easier than typical cycloramas.

Films shown In the Madinat Arena were viewed on two ShowTex FrontScreen Supermat Perforato projection screens measuring 8.3 m x 20 m. The Madinat Souk Theatre presented new films on two 5.2 m x 11.5 m projection screens, hung on a truss with specially designed hooks. The side masking for the movie screens was achieved with a ShowTrack rail controlled separately for the right and left side. For masking on the top and bottom of the film screens ShowTex made use of the EasyDrape pipe and drape mounting system. For an added vintage Hollywood touch, Dubai International Film Festival theatre seating was covered in 2700 running meters of Velours Puccini. Another star in the ShowTex Middle East product range, 2520 m² of DMX controlled ShowLED Chameleon RGB led curtains were provided by Staging Connections to cover theatre walls and the ceiling of the entrance hall.