Festival screening rules, however, are somewhat different. The curtain is to be completely open (and all lights off) by the time the first picture appears, and the last projectable frame must clear the screen before the curtain starts to close. They also take a dim view (pardon the pun) of bringing up the house lights at all, during the credits.

There is an interesting effect to dimming the lights then opening the curtain, from an audience point of view. Squeaky rollers on the curtain tracks make the audience wonder if a large number of mice have been spooked, and are about to start stampeeding toward the back of the auditorium.

The end credits must be showed in a dark auditorium, according to the festival rules, though, and I respect that rule as long as the city officials say it's OK. Most of the patrons stay through the credits, in any case, and nobody's yet broken anything as a result.