White Light Pictures

White Light Pictures Ltd is a small, family-run audiovisual business in Birkirkara, in the middle of the island, and it does something few other firms in Malta offer under one roof. Visitors and residents can rent a private cinema for an evening, musicians and voice artists can book a recording studio built inside a screening room, and hotels, museums and venues turn to the company for seating and sound.

On VisitMalta.co.uk the business is listed in our directories of recording studios in Malta and cinemas in Malta. For a UK reader it is best thought of as a cinema installer and private screening venue that also happens to run a studio, rather than a multiplex with a ticket office.

A cinema family since the 1950s

White Light Pictures was formed in 1994 and is owned mainly by the brothers Raymond and Lino Grech, who each have more than fifty years in cinema and audiovisual work. Their link with film began in childhood, when their father was the projectionist at the Comet Cinema in Floriana in the late 1950s. The family later moved to the Prince Cinema in Birkirkara and, in 1961, to the Metropole theatre there, where their father took over projection duties.

Lino went on to work as a projectionist at the Embassy and Ambassador cinemas in Valletta, later turned into the island's first four-screen multiplex, and helped set up their equipment. Raymond made his own short films and was heavily involved in the Malta Cine Circle and the Golden Knight International Film festival. Anyone interested in the capital's cinema past can combine this history with our Valletta guide.

The company itself began with a multilingual audio system for Malta's first audiovisual tourist attraction, The Malta Experience. That system was later adopted by almost all of the island's auditorium-based and walk-through attractions, and it remains one of the firm's major products. Its work includes attractions such as Gozo 360, The Knights of Malta and The Limestone Heritage, so visitors to Gozo, where our Gozo island guide is a useful companion, or readers of our Knights of Malta history guide may already have heard its soundtracks.

The VIP private cinema

The headline service is the VIP Cinema, a private screening room that can be hired for the evening. It seats 22 in professional-standard seats with armrests and cup holders, and it is designed for 4K projection with a screen spanning the width of the room and a 7.1 surround system. Every surface is dark so the picture keeps its contrast, and the room supports scope, 16:9 and 4:3 formats. Connections include HDMI and Ethernet, so laptops and consoles plug in easily.

Next door is a warm-lit bar area for up to a small crowd, where non-alcoholic drinks are sold and you can bring in a caterer of your choice, and a contemporary boardroom for up to six people with a conferencing system, a large screen and fast Wi-Fi across the venue. The package suits birthdays, hen and stag parties, wedding video screenings, lectures, training days, press events and business meetings.

Guests can also ask for a film or an alternative-content screening such as opera, theatre or live sport. For a film night you give the date and title and the company replies with a quote, subject to availability of the title. If you are planning a larger corporate or social programme, 242.group's Malta offices offer event planning, and the 97Notes entertainment venue is another entertainment venue in the directory. Our things to do in Malta page has more ideas for an evening out.

The venue is arranged so that a group can move naturally through an evening. Guests arrive in the bar, where video of your choice can be streamed on the television, settle into the screening room for the main event, and return to the bar afterwards to talk it over. The boardroom works well for a pitch or an interview before a screening, with coffee service on request and catering booked externally if you need a meal. Laptop connectivity and microphones are available for presentations and training sessions, which makes the room a cinema-style alternative to a hotel conference suite.

Recording studio, gaming and film review

The recording studio sits in the same premises and can be booked on its own or together with the screening room, bar and conference room. It records narration, production sound and mixing, upmixing and downmixing, and audio books, with film, television and games projects in mind. Sessions can be filmed and edited into a behind-the-scenes video, and the company can arrange catering or a personal concierge so you can work without interruption.

Film crews can use the theatre to watch dailies or rushes before a production is finished. Gaming is the other draw: with PC, Xbox and PlayStation titles on a screen of around 200 inches, groups can host private events, corporate gaming nights or small eSports tournaments for an audience of up to 22, with finger-food packages available.

The recording studio suits small, focused jobs because the room is a screening theatre with cinema-grade sound. That means surround-sound work can be monitored in the environment where it will eventually be heard, a real advantage for dubbing, live recording and surround equalisation. Gaming nights are run with a bar area for colleagues who would rather chat than play, a space in front of the seats for party games such as Rock Band, VR or Wii, and an eSports-style layout with computers facing each other for competitive play. Merchandise can be sold from a booth in the bar during tournaments, and drinks at the bar are sold at modest prices.

Seating, equipment hire and consultancy

For projects beyond its own walls the company works with a leading European seating manufacturer and supplies seats for cinemas, theatres, halls and conference centres in Malta and Gozo. The seats are offered in many designs and colours, are certified to ISO 9001, 14001 and 14006, are made with recyclable processes and sustainably managed forest products, and come with a consultation and on-site help from design to installation.

Its equipment hire covers loudspeakers, amplification, microphones, conference systems, DJ mixers, lighting and special effects, power distribution and video for anything from presentations to sports projection, for short or long terms. Consultation services include specification writing, architectural design input, acoustics and insulation for professional cinemas and home theatres, with costs matched to the client's budget. The firm also converts old video tapes and film to digital.

The audiovisual hire side covers the practical detail that makes events run smoothly: small and medium-format loudspeakers with high-powered amplification, a large range of microphones and conference systems, ambience and effects lighting through to larger light shows, and video equipment from promotional signage to big sports projections that can be linked to the audio and lighting. The company has 25 years in the hire business, and delivery and installation are planned to arrive on time. Its consultation team writes specifications for builders, architects and installers, studies room dimensions and acoustics before work starts, and recommends the best mix of equipment for the budget. It also advises more widely on acoustics and insulation for auditoriums, two fields where the company sees a gap in Malta.

The team and how to start

Raymond A. Grech is founder and director, and Lino Grech is the technical expert. Samuel Grech is marketing manager and Daniel Walter Grech is IT manager, and together the team has around eighty years of combined experience, from young members who pick up new technology quickly to veterans who have seen most problems before. The approach to each job is custom rather than off the shelf, with support after installation treated as a core part of the business.

Most visitors reach Birkirkara by car or bus from the harbour towns, and our guide to where to stay in Malta helps you pick a base. To ask about hiring the cinema, booking the studio or specifying seating, use the VisitMalta.co.uk enquiry form on this page and we will pass your message to White Light Pictures.