The idea for the second moonbow cinema screening event was to show Interstellar (*1) directed by Christopher Nolan at somewhere related to space in December 2015.

Back in autumn 2014, I saw Interstellar in the suburban movie theater. When I left the theater, starts were so bright that I felt as if I had been still in the story. Around that time, I started to share the idea of moonbow cinema to my friends and used the matching of Interstellar and planetarium as an example of the event’s concept. Based on this experience, I thought it was the time to realize this initial idea.

In December, the air is clean and stars are bright in Tokyo. I chose December, Sunday 20th 2015 as the date of moonbow cinema because it was the closest Sunday to the winter solstice when we were able to spend the longest hours with stars.

As preparation, I spent most of the time for selecting location. I searched on the Internet and found The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (*2) in Odaiba, Tokyo. They rent the halls for the scientific events. I visited the museum to see the fit to moonbow cinema. The location seems perfect with the access by fully automated train Yurikamome, an open space with glass walls and the fact that the Director was Mamoru Mori, a former astronaut.

I wrote and corrected the application form many times to get the status of science event. After I finally submitted the form, I explained on the phone and emails to the administration office. Luckily, the person in charge of moonbow cinema was cooperative and finally I got the approval to rent the hall! Right after the location was fixed, I asked aya, a graphic designer, to design the brochure.

Through the announcement of the event, I was impressed by people’s love for Interstellar. Once I announced on Twitter, the notification of retweet/like did not stop. My smartphone was always ringing. Interstellar made moonbow cinema familiar to many movie buffs. The capacity of location was 80 seats, the biggest as moonbow cinema so far. The reservation became full before the date. I was a bit nervous whether everything was going well so that every attendee was able to enjoy the story. The first event was with full of troubles but this time, the staff of museum kindly did all setup so everything went smoothly.

Attendees were diversified. Since the museum announced the event, families with children and grandchildren joined as well as people who love movies. At the end of this screening, a few attendees told me that they would like to hear about behind-the-curtain stories of the film. Today, moonbow cinema gives presentation about the film before and after the screening. However, for the first and second events, I was fully occupied by the operational preparation and did not have the capability to talk about the film by my own words. When we finished the Interstellar event, there was beautiful twilight outside the museum and made me more excited to prepare for the next event.

In January 2016, I joined Sundance Film Festival (*3) again. This time my motivation was a bit different from previous years. I was looking for ideas to make moonbow cinema better. (To be continued.)