From 20.02 till 25.02, WroFilm organized the 115+ hours of non-stop film screening at ATOM cinema, and, in the end, 4 contestants manage to rewrite the Guinness record of non-stop film marathon from 114 hours to 116 hours. [N.B. This record is now in the process of verification by the authority of Guinness World Record and is yet to be confirmed]

We followed this film marathon closely, and below are the links to our daily video coverage:
Day 1 / Day 2 / Day 3 / Day 4 / Day 5 / Day 6 (Finale)
camera / edit: Karol Rakowski
interview: Alice Altissimo

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Day 1 (Monday, 20.02.06)
On Monday, 20.02.06, at 10:00AM, the challenge finally started. We interviewed some participants about where they came from and how they prepared themselves for this film marathon. We also spoke with Maciek and Ola from WroFilm – the organizers of the film marathon – at the moment when the challenge began.

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Day 2 (Tuesday, 21.02.06)
09:40 – 49 contestants remaining / 8 contestants eliminated. There was a talk of a “technical problem” earlier in the morning (to be clarified later on). At this moment, the films are projected 20min ahead of the published schedule.

11:30 – 48 contestants remaining / 9 contestants eliminated. More details about the “technical problem”: it seems that the distributor who provided the films in digital format either did not do “good compression” of the films or did the “wrong compression” (more info coming later today). Whatever was the case, some time in the morning, it appears that the film suddenly stopped and, then, 4 contestants left the cinema, believing that the projection would not continue. At this moment, with the fear of encountering another “technical problem,” the organizers are projecting relatively “shorter” films, instead of “very long” films, and also from the backup stock of films. The projection is no longer following the published schedule (at this moment, they are projecting “Dancer in the Dark” by Lars von Trier). We will get more updates later today.

15:00 – 47 contestants remaining / 10 contestants eliminated. The “technical problem” still exists but the organizers are doing their best to stick to the published schedule. They are also trying to re-synchronize the projections to the published schedule (the projection was still 20 min ahead of schedule). The details about this “technical problem” will be published in our next video podcast.

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Day 3 (Wednesday, 22.02.06)
13:00 – 29 contestants remaining / 28 contestants eliminated. The film projection itself continues without any further incident. The “long” films (i.e., more than 2 hours) have been replaced by other films from the backup selections, but most of the films are the same as the ones originally scheduled. The projection is now running approx. 16min ahead of the printed schedule.

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Day 4 (Thursday, 23.02.06)
12:30 – 13 contestants remaining / 44 contestants eliminated.
One contestant lost consciousness around 11AM and was taken out by the medical staff to the emergency room. The general mood remains still tense, and the stress is visible. The projection is now running 90min ahead of the published schedule due to the same “technical problem” as the day before.
00:20 – 7 contestants remaining / 50 contestants eliminated.

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Day 5 (Friday, 24.02.06)
10:00 – 6 contestants remaining / 51 contestants eliminated.
12:30 – 6 contestants remaining / 51 contestants eliminated. The organizers claim that the projection schedule is more or less faithful to the published schedule, and yet the last break between the films was 30 min ahead of the schedule.

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Day 6 (Saturday, 25.02.06)
6:05 – 3 contestants remaining / 54 contestants eliminated.
The estimate time of breaking the Guinness Record is 9:40 CET. Every 24 hours we have lost 50% of the remaining contestants and, according to this calculation, by tomorrow morning, we should have a winner… not today. “In the end, there can be only one.”

9:10 – 4 contestants remaining / 53 contestants eliminated.
The mistake from the information source. 4 remaining.

the end – 4 contestants remaining / 53 contestants eliminated.
At 116hours 05min, the 4 contestants decided to put an end to the challenge. The new Guinness World Record, when confirmed.