The Projectionist

SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2026 REVIEW: Shadows from the past black out the future while the reels keep spinning in the gloomy neo-noir The Projectionist, directed by Alexandre Rockwell, who also wrote, produced, and edited the feature. Sully (Vondie Curtis-Hall) works as the projectionist of a fading revival cinema that specializes in film noir and old foreign art movies. He has recently finished up 12 years in prison for manslaughter, though he cannot remember exactly what happened. He was driving his little girl back home, late at night, bottle in hand next to the steering wheel. He had told her he needed to run an errand before they went home to mommy. She waited in the parking lot while her father drank in the bar for hours.

When Sully got home, his wife, Rosa (Karyn Parsons), was dead in the bedroom from a shotgun blast. When Sully came to from blacking out right afterwards, a man was dead, and he was in jail. Now that he is out, he visits his brother, Aaron (David Proval), in the hospital. Aaron has serious dementia and goes in and out of recognizing who Sully is. After working at the empty movie theater, Sully is approached by Duck The Cop (Kevin Corrigan), the corrupt police detective who works for the crime gang Sully used to run with. Duck lets Sully know that his old boss, Ramona (Kasi Lemmons), wanted a meeting, which Sully declines. This doesn’t go over well, and soon Sully is forced to sit in front of Ramona, surrounded by his old partners in crime, like Dizzy (Michael Buscemi). Dizzy lets Sully know that things are going to go the way things go, whether Sully likes it or not.

“Sully works as the projectionist of a fading revival cinema that specializes in film noir and old foreign art movies.”

Filmmaker Alexandre Rockwell is best known for his work in the anthology movie Four Rooms, which also featured installments by Allison Anders, Robert Rodriguez, and Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino has an executive producer credit on The Projectionist, which in happier times would have led tens of thousands to accidentally buy the DVD in K-Mart. Just like the words “DVD” and “K-Mart”, this film trades heavily on retrospective and relic love. Even the title is locked into a reference to a once all-important piece of technology that is now in the bin.

I kept fixating on the In A Lonely Place poster hanging in the projection booth. Shot in stunning black-and-white by Sam Motamedi, the throwback monochrome color palette perfectly matches the lost era that the film is grasping for. The cast also resurrects memories of the better days, as everyone here had their day in the sun several times. Proval, who was in Mean Streets and Wizards, is wonderful at taking the viewer to a very painful place. Lemmons, who directed one of the top movies of the 90s with Eve’s Bayou, is masterful as a crime lord with a sense of style, giving off a Tess gone bad vibe.