Vincent Simmons has never left the United States in his 35 years. In a matter of days, that changes — not for a holiday, not for work, but for a cinema screen. The Los Angeles projectionist is boarding a 15-hour flight to Melbourne to watch Christopher Nolan's latest film, The Odyssey, at Melbourne's IMAX theatre, the only venue in the southern hemisphere capable of screening it the way its director intended.
Simmons has spread the cost across several credit cards, committing close to $4,000 on flights and accommodation for a three-week stay. He plans to see the film twice at Melbourne's IMAX — on top of a screening he'll catch back home in Los Angeles before he even boards the plane.
Why Melbourne's IMAX Is Drawing Fans From Across the World
Melbourne's IMAX is not a standard multiplex screen. It is one of only 41 cinemas worldwide equipped to project true IMAX 70mm film — the largest film stock in existence — and its screen, measuring 32 metres wide and 23 metres tall with a 1.43:1 aspect ratio, is the biggest of its kind anywhere on the planet. Just seven of those 41 theatres are located outside North America.
"Because we're only one of 41 cinemas in the entire world that can screen this film on IMAX 70mm on our large 1.43:1 aspect ratio screen, it's a place that customers seek out," said Jeremy Fee, general manager at IMAX Melbourne. "This is the only place in Australia, in the southern hemisphere, that you can see it in the way that Christopher Nolan intended."
For Simmons, a man who has spent years watching footage of the venue online, the draw was irresistible. "I've heard about the IMAX in Melbourne for years — I've probably watched every YouTube video that shows even a sliver of it," he said. "I told myself I'd go one day."
"70mm IMAX offers hands down the greatest sensory engrossment you could possibly have when watching a film," he added. "It's the closest sense of lifelike fidelity — a transcendent film format that everyone should experience at least once in their life."
With a wry nod to the film itself, Simmons put it simply: "I was brave enough to undertake my own odyssey in travelling to Melbourne. Hopefully it won't be as burdensome as Odysseus' journey."
The Technical Marvel Behind the Experience
The logistics of screening a true IMAX 70mm film are formidable. A single print of The Odyssey, released in Australia on 16 July, stretches more than 17 kilometres when laid end to end. The film stock must be reloaded into the camera every three minutes during a shoot, and each session requires constant quality assurance checks to keep the projection running true.
The reels run on platters large enough to hold three hours of runtime — just eight minutes more than the film's own two hours and 52 minutes. Crucially, only five people in Australia are currently qualified to manage the process.
"It's a perishable skill," Fee said. "It was [a dying craft] … I think it's a growing art form now." The renewed appetite for premium large-format cinema appears to be breathing life back into a craft that once seemed destined for obsolescence.
A Queue Full of Pilgrims
At Melbourne's IMAX opening weekend for The Odyssey, Simmons was far from alone in having travelled a significant distance to be there. Reports from the venue indicate the queues were filled with filmgoers who had come from well beyond Melbourne — drawn by the same desire to experience the film as its director envisioned it, on a screen unlike any other in the southern hemisphere.
Among them was Kaivalya, a 28-year-old PhD student and self-described Nolan devotee, who was in the middle of relocating to Melbourne — a move that, at least in part, aligned with the film's release.
For fans like Simmons, the journey is the point. The format, the scale, the rarity — it all adds up to something they argue no digital alternative can replicate. As he puts it, once you experience it, you will want to experience it again.
