November 5, 2026 | Holly Rushakoff
The Knight Auditorium at Spurlock Museum was outfitted with a significant upgrade to its projection system, giving audiences a premier moviegoing experience.
In summer 2026, a 4K digital cinema package (DCP) system was installed thanks to joint funding from the College of Media’s Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies and the Spurlock Museum, where free Ebert Center screenings are held throughout the academic year.
This makes the Knight Auditorium the only venue on campus capable of providing film-industry resolution standards, using a system equivalent to commercial movie theaters.
To inaugurate the DCP system, the Ebert Center screened the hyper-pigmented Italian horror film Suspiria (Argento, 1977) during Halloween week because of its recent 4K restoration. The film was one of the last to use a Technicolor dye-transfer printing process—and a DCP, which is a digital equivalent of a 35mm film print, can closely replicate that visual experience.
“Everyone I spoke to after the screening of the restored copy of Suspiria brought up the richness of the viewing experience,” said Jenny Oyallon-Koloski, director of the Ebert Center and associate professor in the Department of Media & Cinema Studies with an appointment in the Institute of Communications Research.
“I think it’s wonderful that at Illinois we can continue to support this quintessential kind of film experience: watching a movie in an immersive space, at the highest possible quality, and in community with other lovers of cinema,” Oyallon-Koloski added.
Not only does the DCP system bring professional-grade projection quality to the almost 24-foot-wide screen in the Knight Auditorium, but it also enables the Ebert Center and Spurlock Museum to connect with a broader network of DCP-driven programming already common at peer institutions. This includes access to film restorations or preview screenings before those films are viewable on streaming platforms or other home viewing technologies.
It also means that student work featured in the annual Illinois Student Film Festival and MACS Student Showcase, both sponsored by the Department of Media & Cinema Studies, can be viewed in 4K.
“This will be useful pedagogically,” said Derek Long, associate professor in the Department of Media & Cinema Studies with an appointment in the Institute of Communications Research, who organizes the MACS Student Showcase. He explained that the image quality of the DCP system will encourage students to think carefully about focus, framing, and other small details of their filmmaking.
“As opposed to seeing their work on a phone, laptop, or tablet, now our students can truly make films for the big screen. It will be a world of difference,” Long said.
To further enrich film screenings at the Knight Auditorium, the Ebert Center is next looking for opportunities to update the current three-channel audio system. Upgrading the Knight Auditorium’s sound infrastructure to an industry-quality digital surround system would improve audio clarity and the immersive moviegoing experience. It would also support more robust assistive listening systems to enhance the space’s ADA compliance.
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