Clearing up the opening night disaster

Hi everyone. Chris Paffendorf, Production Coordinator of SDAFF here. I want to take the time to clear up exactly what happened to Legend of the Fist.

First of all, many many apologies to our patrons. I know a lot of you were upset, and you have every reason to be. Trust me, the anger you felt was matched by our embarrassment over the situation. And I also thank those of you who were patient and understanding enough to make the switch to another theater.

As for what exactly happened, well, the projectors in the theater generate an incredible amount of heat. Without any cooling, they will simply shut down. To aid in this, huge exhaust fans are in the building to channel out that heat. Unbeknownst to us, the exhaust fan in screen 7 burned out last night. It was a most unfortunate coincedence. Even if the festival was not happening last night, that projector would have shut down regardless. It just so happened it was on our opening night that it occurred.

Correcting Pamela's blog, the film did not "melt". The projector simply stopped, and there was no damage to the film at all. We just moved the film to another theater, where it played fine the rest of the night.

Again, apologies for the inconvenience, but I understand the fan has been replaced, and screen 7 will (knock wood) run smoothly the rest of the event.