The Olympion will be the first Digital Cinema theater in the Balkans and the greater area of the South-Eastern Mediterranean and the eleventh such theater in Europe. At the same time, it will maintain its role as a traditional film theater, continuing to screen conventionally made films, while at the same time being able to take advantage of new technology and to screen films that may never be imprinted on celluloid.

Digital Cinema theaters already in operation include: Kinepolis in Brussels, Gaumont Aquaboulevard in Paris, Uci Kinowelt in Berlin and in Duesseldorf, Cinedom Koln in Cologne, Uci Cinese Diagonal in Barcelona, Cinepolis Ciudad de la Imagen in Madrid, Warner Village Star City in Birmingham, Odeon Leicester Square and Warner Village West End in London, and Uci Filmworks in Manchester. At present, 50 film theaters internationally are equipped with the infrastructure of Digital Cinema, however their number keeps climbing at a rapid pace every day.

Acknowledging the international trend of digitalizing production, distribution and screening methods -it is estimated that, by 2010, use of conventional film will have decreased by 90%, while 80% of all film theaters will be equipped with digital technology- the International Film Festival of Thessaloniki worked out a program entitled "Modernization of Services of the Cultural Institution of the International Film Festival of Thessaloniki" and has proposed that it be included in the Central Macedonian Regional Business Program. The project has an initial budget of 160 million drachmas and is expected to be completed by 2002.

The two-day conference will focus on the possibilities of that method of production and will take place within the contexts of the 42nd International Film Festival of Thessaloniki, at Warehouse I, at the Pier A', at Thessaloniki's Port, on Thursday 15th November and on Friday 16th November, from 12:00 noon till 3 pm.

During the conference, the International Film Festival will be in teleconference with the University of Patras. Students and professors will participate from afar, while representatives of the academic and student community of Thessaloniki will also be invited to participate. The reason for the live connection is that, by virtue of the Digital Cinema screening method, a film may be screened in various locations at the same time via satellite. The system will be set up with the help of the University, OTE (Greek Organazation on Telecommunications) and NETCONNECT S.A.

First Day- Creativity and New Technologies
Reports of:
· Angelo D'Alesio, President of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers
· Giannis Kalogeropoulos, director and 3D animator
· Tasos Boulbetis, producer-director
· Georgios Papanikolaou, professor at the University of Thessaloniki
· Patrick Prado, director
· Stefan Uhrik, journalist

Screening of three short films, produced and processed electronically: Public Space by Jia Zhahg Ke, Digitopia by John Akomfrah and A conversation with God by Tsai Ming Lang. These films were screened for the first time as a whole at the last Film Festival of Venice.
Conversation with the artists.

Second Day- Technical presentation of Digital Cinema
How it influences the production and the distribution of the films
Reports and conversation with:
· Julios Fried, representative of Eclair Laboratories
· Richard Hartley, representative of the Company Grass Valley Group
· Vasilis Kyriazis, electronics engineer, President of Telmaco Company
· Nikos Lyberopoulos, professor of the Polytechnic School, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Patras
· Keith Morris, Sales Manager of Barco Company
· Kostas Hasomeris, professor of the Polytechnic School, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Patras

Excerpts of the film "Edge of night" by N.Panagiotopoulos will be screened, as an example comparing the differences between the processes of traditional and digital filming. The processing of the image was made in Eclair Laboratories.

Digital or e-cinema is the system, which transmits films and any other type of high resolution audiovisual program through the use of digital technology. It is a technology that can totally replace film as a material for the imprinting of images and sound. Image and sound are digitalized, zipped and codified, and are then transmitted via electromagnetic methods, through satellite or cable to the film theaters, where they are stored on hard discs in high resolution. In this way, Digital Cinema covers all stages of film production and distribution, security and flexibility in the process of artistic creation, speed in the stage of processing, and economy in the stage of production and distribution.

Although the first experiments with digital Camera date back to 1930, it wasn't until the year 2000 that the desired results were achieved. The leading audiovisual industry of Hollywood approved a series of technological systems that can produce and transmit high resolution image and sound. Large production companies, such as Disney studios, approved and adopted this format in the production and distribution of their films, changing their screening system over to digital in the year 2000.

-Production: by the year 2010, the use of film will be down by 90% and all production studios will be able to produce films or any other type of audiovisual material using high resolution digital technology.

-Screening: by the year 2010, 80% of film theaters will be equipped with digital technology.

-Transmission: this will take place via satellite or cable within the next four years. Already, in Hollywood, over 80 films have been produced digitally, while a large number of films made on celluloid are being transcribed into digital electronic image.

An important innovation of Digital Cinema is that a screening can be held at several theaters concurrently, via satellite, without compromising its quality.