The Rooftop Cinema – Part 1: Reel Change

"Don't touch the second reel," said Zoe. "Please."

"I wasn't going to."

"You were thinking about it. Everyone does."

Eleni laughed and put her hands behind her back. The projection booth was a tiny cabin on the roof of a block of flats in the centre of Athens, hot and cramped and smelling of warm metal and old film. Through the small window the rooftop cinema spread below, rows of folding chairs under a huge night sky, with the lit Acropolis hanging above the skyline like a painting.

Eleni, thirty-seven, was a film critic from Thessaloniki in town for a festival. Zoe, thirty-three, was the projectionist, a small, quick woman in a black vest with cotton gloves tucked into her belt and silver rings on her thumbs. She threaded the film through the old machine with practised fingers.

"Why not digital?" asked Eleni.

"Digital is perfect. This is alive." Zoe flicked a switch. The projector clattered and a beam of light shot across the roof. "It breathes. It scratches. It changes every night."

Eleni stood close, watching. The black-and-white film unfolded on the white wall, a love story from the 1950s, and the audience below sighed in unison. In the booth the light flickered over Zoe's face, soft and silver.

"You're not watching the film," said Zoe, without looking round.

"I'm watching it. From here."

"It's backwards from here."

"I like the angle."

Zoe turned, cheeks flushed in the projector's glow. "Eleni. At the end of the night, when the roof is empty, I show the last reel just for myself. It is very beautiful. Would you stay?"

"I'd love to."

Continue the story: Part 2 – The Last Reel.

Continue the story: Part 2 – The Last Reel.