Prague’s rare 70 mm IMAX draws thousands of Europeans for Nolan’s 'The Odyssey'

PRAGUE (AP) — With Christopher Nolan ’s highly anticipated “The Odyssey” recording impressive sales around the globe, thousands of Europeans have used it as a new and unexpected reason to visit Prague.

The Czech capital has one of the few dozen movie theaters in the world, and three on the European continent, that is equipped with the coveted 70 mm IMAX screen to watch the first feature made entirely with IMAX cameras.

“It completely changed my experience about the movie," said Nicolas Walak from Poland, who also saw the movie before on a normal screen before viewing it in Prague. "Everything was great. It was a great movie.”

There are only 41 IMAX screens worldwide, with most in North America. Montpellier in France and the Belgian capital, Brussels, are the only other two in the European Union countries. Britain has another three.

To meet massive demand, the Czech branch of the Cinema City offers four to five screenings a day, one starting after midnight, and the majority are sold out.

Film fans from about 15 European countries, from Scandinavia to Spain, have been coming to watch “The Odyssey” in Prague, Cinema City said. Their number reached 22,000 by Monday, it said.

The IMAX 70 mm film presentation is Nolan's preferred format. The Oscar-winning filmmaker calls it the “best possible experience.”

Daniel Jung drove with his two teenage sons, Felix and Leo, for three days from Norway through Denmark and Germany "just to see this movie. Tomorrow, we’re going back.”

Leo was in touch with Cinema City by email half a year before the July 16 premiere and followed the cinema operator on Instagram. He managed to book the tickets immediately after they became available.

“We were in the 11th row, right in the middle. We had the very best seats,” Leo said, calling the effort “absolutely worth it.”

“It’s just so big. We come from Norway, the screens we have are much smaller,” he said. “Now, we watched it in this huge format. I will always remember this experience.”

Felix said they had a good time on the way, visiting some places in Germany, but it would be worth it even if they just drove straight there.

Due to the cost and other challenges, productions for the 70 mm IMAX are rare. The IMAX cameras are heavy and new versions with reduced noise had to be developed to be usable for making “The Odyssey.”

The film print sent to theaters is so big — weighing some 300 kilograms (661 pounds) and 18 kilometers (11 miles) long — that it has to be delivered to theaters in parts. The movie and the projector have to be in a climatized room and the projectionists need to be approved by IMAX for the job.

As movie theaters around the globe were acquiring digital IMAX equipment around 2008, the Cinema City decided not to get rid of the original analogue projector in Prague. It was placed in a corner for three years until 2012 to screen Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises.”

It was used to show several others, including Nolan's “Interstellar” in 2014 and “Oppenheimer” three years ago.

“We’re really grateful to him for that,” projectionist Tomáš Vyšinský said about his predecessor who saved the equipment.

Michal Slama prepares the 70 mm IMAX copy of Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" for screening in Prague, Czech Republic, Monday, July 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Tomas Vysinsky prepares the 70 mm IMAX copy of Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" for screening in Prague, Czech Republic, Monday, July 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Tomas Vysinsky prepares the 70 mm IMAX copy of Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" for screening in Prague, Czech Republic, Monday, July 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Tomas Vysinsky prepares the 70 mm IMAX copy of Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" for screening in Prague, Czech Republic, Monday, July 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Spectators view the 70 mm Imax copy of Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" in Prague, Czech Republic, Monday, July 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

The Justice Department has moved to dismiss its criminal case against a labor union leader who was arrested while protesting the Trump administration's immigration crackdown in California.

The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles filed a motion Monday to dismiss its case against David Huerta, president of Service Employees International Union California, which has more than 750,000 members including janitors, security officers and other workers. The government will seek to have the case permanently withdrawn within weeks if Huerta continues to comply with the terms of his pretrial release and stays out of trouble, prosecutors said.

Huerta said in a statement that he was tackled, pepper-sprayed and detained for exercising his constitutional rights to protest and cast the case against him as part of a broader “weaponization of the judicial system.”

“There was never a real case, only an attempt to punish and silence me for exercising my constitutional rights,” he said in a statement. “I will keep exercising my constitutional rights and protest every abuse this administration commits, and I will keep working to build a country that treats immigrant families and all workers with the dignity they deserve.”

The Justice Department had earlier reduced the felony obstruction charge to a misdemeanor, and in moving to dismiss it entirely, is now backing away entirely from a prosecution that had been announced with fanfare on social media after Huerta's arrest more than a year ago. It's the latest courtroom setback for a department that has struggled, in offices across the country, in its prosecutions of people accused of assaulting or hindering federal officers while protesting President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles said in its own statement that the department doesn't arrest people for peacefully protesting. The office said that Huerta was charged with interfering with a judicial search warrant and has complied with the terms of his bond for more than a year.

“Pursuant to an agreement entered into with our office, if Mr. Huerta continues to comply with his pretrial release terms, we expect the criminal case against him to be fully dismissed by the end of next month,” the statement said.

Huerta was arrested in June 2025 while protesting outside a business in Los Angeles where federal agents were investigating suspected immigration violations. The incident occurred amid widespread protests over the federal immigration crackdown that drove Trump to take the extraordinary move of deploying the National Guard to the nation’s second-largest city.

Authorities said Huerta sat down in front of a vehicular gate and encouraged others to walk in circles to try to prevent law enforcement from going in or out, and he pushed back when an officer told him to leave and put his hands on Huerta to move him out of the way of a vehicle.

Union leaders and immigrant advocates rallied in cities across the country demanding Huerta's release and he became the face of the pushback against the Republican president's effort to drive up immigration arrests. Top Democrats also fired back. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and California’s two Democratic senators wrote a letter to federal officials demanding answers regarding Huerta’s arrest. California Sen. Adam Schiff attended Huerta’s bond hearing.

“It is deeply troubling that a U.S. citizen, union leader, and upstanding member of the Los Angeles community continues to be detained by the federal government for exercising his rights to observe immigration enforcement,” the senators wrote.

Federal prosecutors initially charged Huerta with felony obstruction. Bill Essayli, the top U.S. prosecutor in Los Angeles, said it didn't matter who was protesting "if you impede federal agents, you will be arrested and prosecuted.”

In October, prosecutors reduced the charge against Huerta to a misdemeanor. The same month, Essayli was disqualified from several cases by a judge who concluded the Trump appointee stayed on as acting U.S. attorney longer than allowed by law. Essayli, who was previously a California state legislator, is now technically the first assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles.

Huerta’s lawyers, Abbe Lowell and Marilyn Bednarski, said in a statement that the case against their client had no legal basis.

“This case, like others, sought to silence criticism of the administration’s improper immigration actions. Today’s filing is proof that David and other critics will not be silenced,” the lawyers said.

FILE - David Huerta, the president of the Service Employees International Union California who was arrested during an immigration raid, speaks after he was released on a bond in downtown Los Angeles on June 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)