FILM buff William Scharnhorst managed a mammoth 50-hour cinema session when he watched 22 feature films back-to-back.

The projectionist, who volunteers at Wareham’s historic Rex Cinema, took on the marathon sponsored viewing to raise funds to refurbish the movie theatre’s seating.

He settled into his seat at 7.15pm on Friday, June 7, before calling it a day at 9.15pm on Sunday, June 9.

The 34-year-old, who raised just under £2,000, streamed the attempt on the internet to ensure he avoided nodding off midway through.

“I had a webcam pointed at me the whole time,” said the Wareham man.

“So everyone would have known if I’d fallen asleep. It was around six o’clock in the morning when I really felt it.

“There was plenty of coffee and Red Bull to keep me going though.”

His highlight of the night? Steven Spielberg’s 1975 thriller Jaws.

“I’ve seen it many times but I’ve never seen it in the cinema.

“Watching it as it was supposed to be seen on the big screen was quite a revelation.”

William also explained that if he’d watched the movies on 35mm cine film instead of DVD/Bluray, the combined length of films spliced together end-to-end would have topped 71km.

Of the Rex, he said: “Everyone who works at the cinema is a volunteer and we do it for the love of film and the love of cinema.

“As an independent cinema we try to run it as a business, but we rely on donations at times.”