‘You’ll have to forgive me,’ Jonathan Nix says in a tired voice over the phone, ‘I’m very weary.’ After finishing his latest film literally the day before we talk, he’s due to jump on a plane in mere hours and can’t get his DVD software to work.

In the face of exciting developments, digital is encroaching on more of 35mm film’s territory, but as Lemac’s Bowring says "Are Mr and Mrs Smith at a cinema in Parramatta going to be watching for artifacts? No, they’re going to be there for the story."

Will the local family-owned single screen cinema flourish, freed from the shackles of a handful of screenings of Spider Man and able to play cult movies from midnight to dawn without paying a cent for film prints?