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Nolan's 'The Odyssey' packs IMAX theaters as fans take high-speed trains for better screens_我的网站

一 |     Colombo, Oct 11 (UNI) Since Sri Lanka announced in April that it will default on its foreign debt, its 22 million residents have lost access to most medicine and medical supplies, setting them on course for a humanitarian disaster, a report published on Tuesday said.
The report by ReliefWeb, a humanitarian information project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, was quoted as saying by The Island newspaper that unlike Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Sri Lanka’s crisis grew slowly and has garnered few international headlines.
But Sri Lankans are suffering amid the harshest economic crisis the country has confronted since gaining independence in 1948, it said.
With the country’s foreign reserves depleted, the nationalized healthcare system cannot afford to import medicine and medical supplies in sufficient quantities, it said.
Sri Lanka relies on imports for about 85 per cent of its pharmaceutical needs and about 80 per cent of its medical supplies. The country imported $815 million in medicine in 2021, but by May had only about $25 million in foreign reserves to pay for imports of any kind.
Last week in Sri Lanka, Direct Relief staff participated in an extensive series of meetings with Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena and much of the country’s healthcare leadership while overseeing the arrival of what may be the largest donation of medicine to the country since the crisis began.
“For the next six months, they’re (Sri Lanka) expecting a catastrophic number of deaths,” said Chris Alleway, Direct Relief’s manager of emergency response and new initiatives, who led the Sri Lanka meetings.
The 3,500-bed National Hospital of Sri Lanka in Columbo, which usually has 1,300 medicines in stock, is now down to requesting only the 60 most essential medicines, the newspaper reported.
With anesthesia in short supply, most general surgeries in the country have ceased, including kidney transplants. Cancer patients have lost access to medications needed to fight the deadly disease. Diabetes patients must secure and bring their own glucose meters for blood sugar check-ups.
Many hospitals are stocked out of basic items like bandages and cotton balls. The stockouts are forcing rural clinics to close their doors and refer patients to larger facilities in urban areas, which also are overwhelmed by the flow of patients.
Due to a severe fuel shortage, the country’s fishing fleets cannot go far out to sea, slashing the supply of fish that is a significant source of protein in the country, including at its largest children’s hospital, it said.
Sri Lanka is also losing clinicians as they migrate to other countries with more opportunities, while its medical colleges see the number of applicants for medical education decline sharply.
Responding to the crisis spurred by Sri Lanka’s default in June of this year, Direct Relief has delivered eight humanitarian shipments totaling 27 tonnes and 16 million defined daily doses of donated medicine.
The largest shipment from Direct Relief to Sri Lanka -- 18 tonnes of medicine and medical supplies requested explicitly by Sri Lanka’s government -- arrived in recent weeks.
UNI MR。    

    Moviegoers line up at a IMAX ticket hall in Dongguan, South China's Guangdong Province, on August 15, 2026. Photo: VCGChristopher Nolan's much-anticipated The Odyssey officially opened in China on Friday, quickly becoming one of the hottest tickets of the summer movie season, with moviegoers scrambling for premium IMAX screenings and some even traveling to other cities for better viewing experiences with better screens. 
Meanwhile, domestic hit Once Upon a Time in the Middle East has grossed more than 850 million yuan ($126 million), adding to the intense competition for audiences during China's packed summer movie season.
The Odyssey, which had already held limited previews in China, had grossed an estimated 240 million yuan as of Sunday, according to ticketing platform Maoyan. Its projected box office is expected to surpass 700 million yuan, potentially exceeding the 452million yuan Oppenheimer grossed in the Chinese mainland.
The Odyssey is the first feature film shot entirely using IMAX cameras and is being presented in IMAX 70mm at select theaters. Its large-format cinematography and expansive visual style have made the IMAX experience a major selling point for Chinese moviegoers.
Demand for premium IMAX screenings was already intense during the film's previews, with some theaters reporting full occupancy. After its official release, that enthusiasm has shown no sign of easing.
In Beijing, one longtime Nolan fan had been following the film since before its release and had repeatedly tried to secure a seat at the China National Film Museum's IMAX GT theater, one of the most sought-after formats for the movie. 
Unable to get a ticket, the moviegoer eventually chose another well-reviewed IMAX theater and paid 180 yuan for a seat, three times the price of a normal seat, that was not particularly well positioned.
The theater was nearly full when the audience arrived, the moviegoers were largely quiet as they waited for the screening to begin. But the large-format presentation delivered the immersive audiovisual experience the audience had been anticipating.
Another moviegoer, Lin Xiao, managed to attend an IMAX screening during the previews and also noted the high attendance. She told the Global Times that audiences had already formed a long line outside the theater before the movie began.
On Chinese lifestyle platform Xiaohongshu, or RedNote, some moviegoers have posted about traveling to other cities because their hometowns do not have IMAX GT screenings. Some have even taken high-speed trains specifically to watch The Odyssey in what they consider a better theater.
Zhang Peng, a cultural researcher and associate professor at Nanjing Normal University, told the Global Times that The Odyssey's strong reception and high attendance in China demonstrate that high-quality content, combined with the rare and highly immersive experience offered by premium formats such as IMAX GT, remains a key competitive advantage for cinemas. 
The film's strong quality, coupled with its cutting-edge large-format presentation, creates a theatrical experience that cannot be easily replicated at home, showing that when cinemas can offer a sufficiently distinctive immersive experience, the big screen retains its unique social and ceremonial appeal, with audiences willing to pay a premium for such exclusivity, said Zhang. 
However, film critic Liu Nandou offered a restrained forecast, predicting its Chinese mainland gross at 300 million to 800 million yuan ($41 million to $110 million). 
"Nolan's films have a ceiling," he told the Global Times in a previous interview. "The threshold for understanding The Odyssey is extremely high, and it doesn't fit the broad popcorn audience."
The appeal of premium formats is not limited to The Odyssey. Several films in China's summer movie season have also embraced IMAX and other high-end formats, giving audiences more options for immersive theatrical experiences.
Once Upon a Time in the Middle East, which has grossed more than 850 million yuan at the box office and is projected to surpass 2.5 billion yuan, according to Maoyan, was specially shot for IMAX. 
Rather than relying on grand battle scenes, the film is set almost entirely in a small Chinese restaurant in war-torn Iraq in 2003. Played by Shen Teng, Xu Fu is a chef looking to make a living abroad and find a quiet life. But when war suddenly erupts, he and restaurant manager Ma Junsheng, played by Jiang Qiming, choose to keep the kitchen running, serving authentic Chinese dishes and creating a safe haven for local civilians and children amid the chaos.
The film uses IMAX's large screen to present the warmth of everyday life and the details of the restaurant with greater clarity and immersion.
The Odyssey, meanwhile, uses IMAX film cameras to bring the epic scale of Homer's poem to the big screen with sweeping and visually striking imagery. All Wishes Come True! is also available in premium formats including IMAX, Dolby and CINITY, using enhanced audiovisual technology to amplify its visual effects and emotional atmosphere and help drive box-office growth, according to China's state media CCTV.
As more films made for premium formats continue to draw audiences, high-end theaters equipped with IMAX, CINITY and other technologies are seeing increased demand, giving moviegoers a wider range of viewing options.
Film industry experts said audiences are no longer satisfied simply with being able to watch a movie, but increasingly want to "watch a good movie" and "experience a film in an immersive environment."
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