Campaign points to decreasing number of cinemas where RO films can be screened

Film distribution company Transilvania Film has rolled out an outdoor and online campaign aimed at raising awareness about the decreasing number of art house cinemas where Romanian films can be screened.

As part of the campaign, Bucharest venues that used to attract cinema goers in the past are marked with a banner carrying the message “This is where you could have seen Monsters. Starting September 27.” The banner was put up on the Corso and Studion cinemas, but also online.

Monsters., the debut feature film of Romanian director Marius Olteanu, was selected in the Forum section of the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), where it won the Tagesspiegel Readers’ Jury Award. It opens in local cinemas on September 27.

Ten cities in the country gather over 70% of the spectators and most cities have no open cinema, which makes the public’s access to European and Romanian films more difficult, the film distributor said. Although Romanian films regularly win distinctions at prestigious international festivals, the number of cinema halls is constantly decreasing. If in 1990, there were about 450 art house cinema halls, only 90 units are still open today. Most cinema halls are open in commercial centers and are privately-owned.

Studio cinema, on the capital’s Magheru Boulevard, was open until the end of 2015. It used to host screenings of the Bucharest Cinemateque, until 1964. In the last few years before its closing it hosted some of the city’s most important film festivals. After the law banning public activities in high seismic risk buildings came into force, the cinema closed because of the overall state of the building.

Corso cinema opened in 1934 on Regina Elisabeta Boulevard. It was named Victoria during the communist period. With a capacity of 273 seats, the cinema was digitalized in 2011 but it is closed today.

(Photo: Monștri. Facebook Page)