Ennead Cineplex

Who We Work With

A journal like this is never one person's project. Venues, festivals and small crews around Gauteng let us sit in their booths, borrow their prints and ask questions long after the credits. These are the partnerships that keep the writing honest and the screenings running.

Why we keep the lights low

Most film writing skips the room. We start there.

Ennead Cineplex began as a shared notebook between a few people who kept ending up in the same Braamfontein booth on a Friday night. A projectionist, two festival volunteers and a pair of film-school graduates who never quite left the campus screening room. We were already writing things down, mostly for each other: which reel arrived warped, which mix buried the dialogue, which repertory season actually filled seats.

The journal exists because that record seemed worth keeping in public. Not reviews of films you can read about anywhere, but notes on the conditions they were shown under, and the people who made those conditions happen.

Weekly, not whenever

One piece goes up every week. Some are long viewing diaries from a single night, others are transcript excerpts from a grading suite or a booth conversation. The schedule keeps us honest about finishing what we start.

Every name, on the page

Contributors are credited by name, including the volunteers who count tickets and the projectionists who thread the print. If someone wrote it, ran it or sat through it to report on it, they get a line.

Johannesburg, specifically

Braamfontein, Rosebank, Maboneng. The venues, the queues on a cold Thursday, the walk from the parking to the door. We write about the city we actually watch films in, not a generic idea of cinema.

Craft over hype

Sound-mixing choices, cue dots, changeover timing, colour decisions under high-veld light. We would rather explain how a thing was made than argue about whether it was good.

What we commit to

A conversational tone, no gatekeeping, and no borrowed authority. We publish what we saw and what it cost the people running the room. The journal is for Gauteng filmgoers, programmers, students and makers who want the practical side alongside the long-form diary.

That also means some things stay out. No financial speculation, no adult content, no gambling, no crypto framing. The subject is the space between the seats and the screen, and we would rather stay narrow and useful than wide and vague.

Our Story

A journal built from the booth, the queue and the back row.

  1. 2016

    A notebook passed around the booth

    It started as a shared notebook between two projectionists in Braamfontein, logging changeover times, splice pops and the nights a print arrived with a reel missing. Friends in festival crews and film school asked for copies, so the notes went online instead of staying in a drawer.

  2. 2018

    A weekly rhythm, and names on every piece

    We committed to publishing once a week and crediting every contributor by name, whether they wrote a full viewing diary or sent three paragraphs about a sound mix that went sideways. That rule has held since, and it shapes how we edit: no anonymous takes, no borrowed observations.

  3. 2021

    Rosebank and Maboneng join the map

    Coverage widened beyond one venue. We began sitting through midnight marathons in Maboneng and grading sessions in Rosebank, which pulled in colourists, programmers and short-film makers as regular voices. The scope stayed narrow on purpose: Gauteng rooms, real screenings, specific nights.

  4. Today

    Still a small crew, still in the room

    Projectionists, festival volunteers and film-school graduates, most of us spending weekends between the seats and the screen. We keep the tone conversational, stay specific about venues and formats, and leave financial speculation, adult content and gambling out of the journal entirely.

What We Keep On The Record

A working gallery from the journal: booth notes, marathon nights and grading rooms. Each entry is credited, dated by the weekend it happened, and tied to a venue we actually sat in.

Ennead Cineplex mission

Projection booth craft

What 35mm Actually Sounds Like in a Braamfontein Booth

Three weekends of carbon-arc hum, splice pops and reel changes that never quite go to plan.

 Ennead Cineplex mission

Event operations

Midnight Marathon Logistics in Maboneng

Queue design, coffee timing and the concession math that decides whether anyone lasts until 4 a.m.

 Ennead Cineplex mission

Craft interview

A Colourist on Why South African Shorts Look the Way They Do

Transcript notes from a Rosebank grading suite on high-veld light, dust haze and small budgets.
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