Rejoice, 35mm-film nerds. This man is bringing tons of screenings to town

Deep within a storage facility in an undisclosed location in the Bay Area, Brett Ryan Bonowicz pulls out a reel of 35-millimeter film for a screening. It’s Alfred Hitchcock’s “Frenzy,” and it’s one of over 225 films, 1,000 trailers, and tons of cartoons — all on 35- and 16-millimeter film — that he owns. 

Bonowicz is the founder and sole operator of Odyssey Film Institute, an organization that rents out films on film to theaters across California, such as Balboa Theater in the Outer Richmond and Foreign Cinema in the Mission. On Sunday night, around 75 people came to the Balboa Theater in the Richmond to watch “Scream” screened on 35mm from the Institute’s collection.

Ron, a moviegoer in attendance, said had heard of the Institute through his friends, who are big movie buffs. He said the organization is doing important work in keeping film relevant.

“I’ve heard that they’re like the Blockbuster of film reels,” Ron said.

Like all great collectors, Bonowicz, an independent filmmaker who now works as a film projectionist at Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont, started off with a humble assortment of three or four prints. He bought his first print relatively recently in 2020. But in a matter of three-ish years, that snowballed into a massive collection that includes classics such as “The Wizard of Oz,” “Night of the Living Dead,” and one of his personal favorites “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

“The film collecting has really kind of gotten out of hand,” Bonowicz said. “I have a much larger archive now than anticipated.” 

His love of film on film stems from the unique viewing experience it provides, which he said gets him, as well as many others, “up off the couch” and into the theater. 

“I love the whole grainy, dark feeling,” agreed Lisandro Lopez, at the “Scream” screening. “I like the little scratches and everything.”

Lopez has seen “Scream” more than 20 times. He brought out Kyle Comstock, who had only seen the film once digitally, specifically so he could see it on 35mm.

Elizabeth Holt, who’s an avid film enthusiast, said it’s the process behind the creation of film on film that really amazes her.

“I think a lot of movies made on 35mm, they’re closer to the 90-minute mark. They’re slower, and the plot is so much more intentional,” Holt said, referring to the way everything with 35mm film has to be done by hand, like splicing to edit between scenes. “You have to set everything before you do it — it’s not digital. I think it’s much more of a craft in that way.”

Bonowicz hand-selects one cartoon and three trailers — also on film, of course — that screen before the film. Viewers at “The Exorcist,” which the Institute screened at Balboa Theater last week, were delighted to see Bugs Bunny cunningly avoid Yosemite Sam in a classic Looney Tunes short.

Compared to his early days of collecting when he was buying any print he could inexpensively get his hands on, Bonowicz’s selection criteria now mostly boils down to what he thinks people will watch. 

Purchasing “The Exorcist” was a “no-brainer”: horror films — especially the classics — bring the largest crowds, making spooky season an especially busy time of year for him.

Other times, something special catches his eye and he takes the plunge not knowing whether people will be interested. He recently purchased a rare IB Technicolor print of “Frenzy” (see it at Balboa Theater on Thursday, Nov. 7), which, as opposed to a chromogenic print, won’t fade over time.

Another rarity coming soon to a theater near you, courtesy of the Institute, is a screening of “Back to the Future Part II” on a print from its original release. The audience at that Nov. 29, 2024 showing will be watching the film from the same exact print that was played in theaters on Nov. 22, 1989.

“If you just took your cellphone and left it in the car, you could have the same experience that somebody in [’89] would’ve had,” Bonowicz joked.

Bonowicz says film is coming back from the past and becoming a thing of the future. He believes the unique experience of watching film on film will prevent the art from dying, and he’s also doing his part to keep it alive, through frequent screenings as well as activations like a projection boot camp to train the next generation of projectionists.

Although film is not yet making as big of a comeback as, say, vinyl, it still has a place in theaters. In addition to Balboa Theater and Foreign Cinema in the Bay Area, Roxie and Alamo Drafthouse also have films on film mixed into their regular schedule of digital films. And down in Palo Alto, Stanford Theatre exclusively screens films on film from Hollywood’s golden age.

“It’s great to have people keeping [film] alive,” said a woman named Margarita, who saw “Scream” at Balboa Theater on Sunday. “You get to see it in the same way that it originally was seen.”

‘Scream’ at Balboa Theater

‘They Live’ at Alamo Drafthouse

‘Frenzy’ at Balboa Theater

‘Being John Malkovich’ at the Roxie

‘Back to the Future Part II’ at Balbo Theater