Kammerlichtspiele in Bad Kreuznach / Germany

 

A postcard full of history.

This cinema in Bad Kreuznach opened on 16th November 1907 by Gottfried Heym. 

The first presentations were in an extension of the restaurant "Zum Freischütz". Today there is a multiplex cinema with 9 halls and 1400 seats. For more than 100 years, the family Heym-Sawatzki has entertained not only the residents of Bad Kreuznach with movies. Now in the fifth generation.

The cinema wears the name Kammer-Lichtspiele between 1920 and 1970.

After World War I, Bad Kreuznach and the Rhineland was occupated by the French military from 1918 to 1930. Many buildings such as gyms, halls, houses and apartments were confiscated as quarters for the soldiers and civilian employees. (There is a research project being carried out by the University of Mainz about this time.)

Among the occupied building there was also this cinema. It was now "Cercle et Mess des Sous-Officiers" - a non-commissioned officer circle and mess. And a cinema, too. Look at the posters at the entrance.

The postcard was maybe sent. There is written "F.M." instead a stamp. That means "Franchise Militaire". During the entire period of French occupation, normal mail sent by members of the army to France or the colonies in North Africa, where many occupation soldiers came from, was free of charge. The unit's vaguemestre also stamped the postage on the mail items delivered to him, thus confirming the sender's right to postage exemption. And this stamp is missed on the postcard. So the postcard can't dated- unfortunately.

This postcard is a souvenir from Léon to his brother Marcel Constans in Nice. Is Léon in the photo himself? It would be too nice to know who the five men, two women and the child on the balcony are. Is the man in the door the owner of the building? Could the German inhabitants visit cinemas during this years? What kind of movies were shown for the French people?

Ata-Tau in Almaty / Kazakhstan

 

The cinema Alatau was opened in 1960. This postcard is from 1965.

The building was a typical Soviet cinema building. Its architects were Evgeny Dyatlov and Igor Popov. The auditorium originally accommodated 780 people. Alatau has also become a kind of cinema center. Here meetings were held with prominent persons from cinema and theater. Together with the Bureau of Propaganda of Soviet Cinema, the Young Friend of Cinema club was organized, as well as clubs for patriotic, legal and atheistic education. 

In July 2002 the cinema was reopened after restoration with 592 seats. The cinema was closed in 2013 and was destroyed in October 2015.

Today you can find a McDonald's restaurant on this place.

Here you can more read about the History of cinemas in Almaty

Kinokalender Dresden 2022 / Germany

It is an add card for a special calendar for 2022. It shows 12 views of all Dresden cinemas in A2 format. The photos were made by Jürgen Lösel and Kinokalender Dresden made the calendar. Kinokalender Dresden has published Dresden's monthly cinema program in a newspaper since 1993 and of course online as well. A very good opportunity to find out more about films and where there are shown in Dresden - and without advertising.

On the cover sheet, you can see cinema Thalia in Dresden-Neustadt. I have already a postcard with this cinema and blogged about it.

Now we have another Corona winter. Cinemas here in Saxony are closed. The cinema Schauburg is now a corona test center. I go there regularly. Hard times for cinemas, and not only for them. It is like living in a dystopian film - I still hope there will be a happy end!

About half of the sales proceeds of this calendar go to the cinemas. Of course, that won't save any cinema from closing. But it's a piece of solidarity and a sign of hope for your home for the next 12 months.

"Support your favourite cinema!" 

I am glad, very glad that my idea could be realized. Danke, Andrej!

 

Café Cinema du centre in Taourirt / Morocco

 

Taourirt is located on the eastern outskirts of Ouarzazate. Its biggest attractions: The Kasbah and the Cinema Museum. The Kasbah is one of the largest Kasbahs in Morocco, built by Pasha Glaoui in 19th century. The Cinema Museum is located opposite Taourirt Kasbah and has collected memories of the films that were shot here.
Did you know, the Ouarzazate area is a noted film-making location, with Morocco's biggest studios inviting many international companies to work here. Among them films like Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), The Living Daylights (1987), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), The Mummy (1999), Gladiator (2000), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), Kundun (1997), Legionnaire (1998), Babel (2006) Hanna (2011), The Hills Have Eyes (2006), and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011)
It was also the location of an episode of the television series The Amazing Race 10, Game of Thrones (Season 3), Prison Break (Season 5).

But I couldn't know anything about this Café Cinema du Centre on the right. The postcard is maybe from the 1920s.

Der neue Primus-Palast in Eschweiler / Germany

Der neue Primus-Palast (The new Primus-Palace) in Eschweiler near Aachen is not the first cinema called Primus in Eschweiler. 

The first Primus-Palast opened on 4 September 1928 in Englerthstrasse. It had 1200 seats, and burned out in 1944.

An interim cinema was makeshiftly prepared in June 1947 in the Schützenhalle as Primus in der Schützenhalle. 

In 1953, a newly built Primus-Palast opened in Grabestrasse with the color film Maske in Blau / Mask in Blue (West Germany, 1953). A dignified place to stay. Tasteful fabric coverings, fine wood paneling and a strong, profiled stucco ceiling with indirect lighting give the auditorium a festive note. Particularly attractive: the large stage with a parade curtain illuminated from above. This is the cinema on the 1958 sent postcard. 

Just 10 years later, on 12 October 1963, the cinema closed and a supermarket was housed in the building. There is still a supermarket on this address, and probably still in the old cinema building.

Later the Primus-Palast moved with its name to the building of the Capitol- a 1957 opened cinema with 682 seats, later departed intwo halls. It existed as the last cinema in Eschweiler until autumn 2020. Look here a last sad shot from the Primus Palast Eschweiler.

At all - there were four cinemas called Primus in Eschweiler from 1928 till 2020.

Cinématophone Modern Theater in Lyon / France

 

Ken Roe writes on Cinema Treasures: "The Cinematophone Modern Theater was opened by Alexandre Rota in October 1906.  ... It was designed by architect J. Fanon of Lyon. The Cinematophone was an early record player which was used to provide background sound to silent films. It was used in the name of the theatre to promote the fact that the Modern Theater had it installed."

Cinématophone does not seem to have existed in any other French city at the time.

Alexandre Rota was born in Candelo, Lombardy in 1868, he appears as a “patron weaver” in the 1901 census in Lyon. He was as the director of the Bellecour cinema in Lyon in 1905. In October 1906, he opened another cinema hall - the Cinématophone-Modern-Theater. 

He wrote about his activities: "Development of cinematography in all its forms - Purchase, sale, rental of devices, new and second-hand films - Rental of films from 0 fr 01 per meter and per day - Home screenings, fixed price for one or more screenings - Treaties for the end of shows in casinos, music halls, concert halls, boarding schools, lounges and families - Photographs, light projections - Fixed price installation of cinematographic stations - Advertising by the cinematographer - Electricity - SGDG patent for cinematographic projection in broad daylight".

Alexandre Rota, an entertainment entrepreneur, also an engineer, patented for having apparently made it possible to organize open-air cinema sessions in the middle of the day. He had obtained a gold medal at the Congress of Inventors of Lyon in 1911. It is known that Alexandre Rota knew how to handle a camera. He thus manages to show in his cinema a film on the funeral of Cardinal Coullié, shot by him that very morning. [Source]

Philippe Célérier writes more about this cinema on his blog: 

"The original 400-seat hall (only 230 in 1961) looks a lot like a theater, with its two side galleries. 

The establishment often changed its name: Modern'Cinéma from 1936 to 1953, Duo from 1953 to 1979, Modern '39, then finally Petit Coucou from 1979 to 1985. Its programming will also experience a lot of upheavals: if in 1958, the Duo is the first art house in Lyon, the Petit Coucou will move towards another genre of cinema, even being classified X in 1979 and 1982, before closing its doors definitively in March 1985 ..."

A. Rota was also a good salesman, when he used the popular postcard as advertising. Maybe the man in the little picture is Alexandre Rota himself? Surely he doesn't stand there by chance.

Neues Filmtheater in Bad Schandau / Germany

 

The cinema Neues Filmtheater was opened in 1953, later called Filmtheater des Friedens (Movie Theater of Peace).

It was closed as a cinema in 1991 and used briefly as a games library. In October 2001 it was opened as the Saxon Switzerland National Park House. The building was gutted for this. The exterior of the building has been well preserved and adapted to the new task. 

The building is a historical monument.

The old analog projectors also got a second chance. They are now used in the Dresden cinema Museumskino Ernemann VII B. The museum cinema has been part of the Dresden Technical Collections since 2002. These are located in the former Ernemann factories (later Pentacon). Cinema projectors and cameras were manufactured here for almost 100 years until 1991.

Royal Cinema in Gabès / Tunisia

 

Gabès is a city on the Mediterranean coast of Tunisia. It has about 120,000 inhabitants and is the 6th largest Tunisian city.

It is not easy to find facts about cinemas in Gabès. In French Wikipedia there is written about Cinemas in the colonies.

In Gabès there was the  L'Atlantide Cinéma with 600 places, directed by Mr. Sauveur, Raphaël Scozzaro and Emile Saada. It opened in 1937.

Radio City Cinema in Tehran / Iran

 

Radio City Cinema was opened on 18 September 1958 in Tehran. It was designed by Heydar Ghiai (1922 - 1985), a pioneer of modern architecture in Iran. His buildings include the Moulin Rouge Cinema, the Senate Palace and the Hilton Hotel in Tehran.
The architecture of the entrance facade was designed in googie style. Red neon lights were installed on the outside of the cinema that glowed at night and gave the cinema a modern look.
The cinema had 1,400 seats and the screen had a width of 14.5 meters.

The Radio City opened with a screening of Les bijoutiers du clair de lune / The Night Heaven Fell - a 1958 French-Italian film directed by Roger Vadim with Brigitte Bardot. The cinema became one of the most visited cinemas in Tehran, showing intellectual films, most of them were US-American films.

Cinemas of the same name were built in major cities in Iran:
- the Radio City Cinema in Mashhad, opened in 1959
- the Radio City Cinema in Rasht, opened in 1965

In July 1973 a bomb incident occurred in the cinema. The cinema was burned during the Iranian revolution in November 1978 like the cinemas Capri, Chest Monde and Moulin Rouge. In the 1980s the cinema became a pharmacy for a while.

In February 2018, the cinema building was placed on the national list of monuments.

The postcard was sent in 1963. It shows the cinema advertising the movie The King and I (USA 1956).

Azar Nafisi writes in her book Reading Lolita in Tehran about watching Tarkovsky in Tehran.
There was a retrospective with Tarkovsky's movies in 1988 (he died in 1986) during the Fajr-Film Festival. The films were shown in Russian with no subtitles and censored. Tickets were traded on the black market, everybody wanted to see Tarkovsky. Azar Nafisi had the chance watching Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice and writes about this event:
“Looking back on that time it seems to me that such rapture over Tarkovsky by an audience most of whom would not have known how to spell his name, and who would under normal circumstances have ignored or even disliked his work, arose from our intense sensory deprivation. We were thirsty for some form of beauty, even in an incomprehensible, overintellectual, abstract film with no subtitles and censored out of recognition. There was a sense of wonder at being in a public place for the first time in years without fear or anger, being in a place with a crowd of strangers that was not a demonstration, a protest rally, a breadline or a public execution.”

Fox Theatre in Detroit / USA

 

I got this postcard from Ron via Postcrossing.

He wrote he is remembering theaters like this.

Much is reported about the theater on Wikipedia.

Today the historic Fox Theatre in Detroit is the largest surviving movie palace of the 1920s with over 5.000 seats. The theatre was fully restored in 1988. But it isn't used as a cinema anymore. You can visit there different venues and concerts.

Thank you. Richard, for this postcard!

Central Kino in Požega / Croatia

 

This modernistic building with 456 seats in parterre and balcony, opened in 1937 with Charles Chaplin's Modern Times. The architect was Ljudevit Pelzer, who is famous for the cinema Korso/Europe in Osijek. The investors of both cinemas were the brothers Slavko and Bogumil Fleissig from Požega. Although Bogumil Fleissig was a civil engineer and had a construction company, his life is connected with the cinema. Already in 1911, his uncle Dragutin Fleissig, also a civil engineer, opened first cinema in Požega.

The architectural building of the new cinema and the outside area indicated the function of the building itself. On the facade of the building with large wall surfaces, an empty wall screen protruded, which was an unusual and interesting advertisement for the interior, cinema projections. The building is an example of the modern architecture of the 1930s.

The Central Kino was closed on 1st May 1999. Today it is a part of the Saint Teresa of Ávila Cathedral. Unfortunately I couldn't a find a photo from today on internet.

So there isn't any cinema today in Požega, but the local film and video club has been organizing every year the Croatian One-Minute Film Festival since 1993. Požega is really worth visiting.

Kino Edison in Karlovac / Croatia

 

The Edison Cinema was designed and built between 1918 and 1920 based on a project by the Zagreb architects Bruno Bauer and Ed Schoen. It is the first cinema in Croatia, built only for this purpose. There were 470 seats. And it was also the biggest cinema in Croatia.

In the 1930’s, sound films were introduced and in 1957 the first Cinemascope projection took place. From the beginning, Edison has been the most comfortable cinema house in Karlovac and it has always had premiere films on its repertoire.

The cinema is now closed because of renovation. It is going to reopen in 2023. After renovation and equipment, Edison will have two cinemas with a total of 260 seats.

The postcard was sent in 1926 and is still well preserved.

Moskva in Sankt-Peterburg / Russia

 

In 1939, USSR's first three-hall cinema Moscow with 1200 seats was built. Its author is professor arch. Lazar Markovich Khidekel (1904-1986). The cinema was built on the site of the 1922 destroyed Church of St. Catherine in Yekateringof.

The facade of the cinema is faced with natural granite and marble, and the upper part is crowned with a sculptural frieze made by sculptor Igor .V. Krestovsky (1893-1976).

Cinema Moscow was  taken under state protection in 1967. The building is still standing, but there is no cinema.

The postcard is a little special. First, it is described - Soviet postcards in my collection were almost never sent. Second, it is noticeable that the reverse side is not printed at all. Usually there is the address field and numbers for the publication and also the price. The price, on the other hand, is on the front this time: ц. 1 Р. = Price 1 Rubel.

I suspect that the postcard was made and sold by a private person. Soviet DIY.

Khiva in Tashkent / Uzbekistan

 

Postcards more than 100 years old are like jewels in my colletion. This is a real one. The postcard was sent in March 1916 and is of very good quality. I'm think it is made before 1914. Lilja wrote this postcard to her mother Milda Janson in Rostov-on-Don. The card was stamped in Rosov.

Lilja wrote, that Samarkand and Tashkent are small towns, there are only few Europeans. A postcard with a cinema and a car seems to be a sign of progress.

The cinema Khiva / Хива / Xiva  was built in 1910  by the architect Georgy Mikhailovich Svarichevsky, who was born in 1868 in the city of Chișinău (Kishinev, at this time Bessarabia, today Moldova). Until his death in 1936, he was very actively involved in the development of the city and region of Tashkent.

The owner of the cinema was Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich of Russia (1850–1918), a grandson of Nichosla I of Russia. Nikolai was an officer and a womanizer too. He had an affair with a notorious American woman Fanny Lear. Due to his affair, he stole three valuable diamonds from the revetment of one of the most valuable family icons. He was declared insane and he was banished to Tashkent. He lived there in a newly built Romanov Palace. 

The Grand Duke was engaged in entrepreneurship. He was the owner of a number of enterprises in Tashkent: a soap factory, photographic workshops, billiard rooms, the sale of kvass, rice processing, soap and cotton factories. He was also involved in laying irrigation canals in the Hungry Steppe and was engaged in the improvement of the city of Tashkent. He paved the streets, built a theater, a club, a hospital for the poor, an almshouse, a circus and even a brothel. 

And this cinema, too. It is named after the city Khiva. Nikolai Romanov himself took part in the Khiva campaign in 1873. And not only the name reains the town: The external appearance of the building itself, smoothly plastered with loess clay without any tint, reminded of Khiva's kala buildings. The main corner entrance, with two three-quarter, rounded, slightly tapering upward towers, was stylized as a khan's palace. The auditorium was decorated with a cornice of 1500 blades of Cossack sabers and swords. The curtain depicted a scene of a parade of Russian troops - a copy of a painting by Nikolai Karazin from his famous Khiva Album. In the foyer, cages with monkeys and parrots were located, entertaining the audience before the film, and the walls were decorated with oriental landscapes.

Nikolai Romanov was the owner of the building and rented out the cinema. That was another very lucrative business. As a real monopolist, he already in 1911 bought out several land plots in the old city of Tashkent and built cinemas "Modern", "Sheikhantaur", "Elzhe" and "Moulin Rouge" on them.

It seems, that Tashkent and its region was his own kingdom ...

Max Vysokinsky is another person connected with Tashkent's cinemas. He became famous as a clown and later an enterpreneuer. In 1907, on the territory of the City Garden, he opened the first Tashkent's cinematographic pavilion called Electrobiograph. He later rented the Grand Duke's cinemas with much success.

At the beginning of 1917, the electrotheatre, already known under the name Winter Khiva (since there was also a summer theater Khiva), burned down. In its place, a brick cinema was rebuilt at the expense of the wife of Prince Nadezhda Alexandrovna. It was later given the name Young Guard and was popular until its demolition after the 1966 earthquake.

So many interesting facts about one cinema. This story should be made into a film ...

125th anniversary of the cinema / Swiss Post

 

This first day letter is a gift from my sister. In December 2020, the cinema celebrated its 125th anniversary. Thanks to the Swiss Post, I was reminded of this. The birthday party was bigger 25 years ago ...

I love these stamps illustrated by Michael Stünzi. Cinema culture changed in the 125 years of its existence. On the left stamp a scene with the projector used by the Lumières is shown, in the middle can be seen classic rolls of film, and on the right there is a digitally presented 3D experience. The cinema audience wears the fashion of the respective era.

I like the creative idea that everyone is sitting in the same two rows, connected through the times (look at the different chairs!) - and printed as stamps together. Maybe the girl left is the older woman in the middle. And the man with the mustache in the middle could be the old man on the right (without the 3D-glasses). The projectionists were not forgotten either. Even if I would have liked it better if the woman in the middle had worn dungarees...

You can see on the envelope a cinema-building in the three ages with people also showing on the stamps. At all, you can tell little stories with these little pictures.

Times are changing and the cinema as a place looking films together will continue. Hopefully! Let's be creative!

Real Cinema in Madrid / Spain

 

The Real Cinema was a movie theater located in Plaza de Isabel II, close to the Teatro Real and the Royal Palace. It opened on May 15, 1920, and was inaugurated by King Alfonso XIII with the screening of the film Francia Pintoresca, El cuarto número 23, La hija del Plata and Vacaciones de Solly. With a capacity for 1000 seats and 54 boxes, it became one of the largest cinemas in Spain.

The cinema was designed by architect Teodore de Anasagasti. He was also the architect of two other Madrid cinemas: the Monumental Cinema (1923, now Teatro Monumental) and El Cisne / Chueca.

In 1923, an outdoor cinema was installed on the roof of the Real Cinema, with a capacity for 800 people.

In 1931, the Spanish Second Republic began and the cinema’s name was changed to Cine de Opera. At the start of the Spanish Civil War, a bomb caused incendiary damage to the building. The cinema re-opened in 1943.

The building was renovated between 1964 and 1965. In 1967 the cinema was remodelled to become the Cinerama for the screening of 70 mm films and the auditorium was later remodelled to accommodate 1400 seats.

In 1992, the company that owns the building hired architect Gilbert Lopez-Atalaya to renovate, so that there would be a new multiplex of four auditoriums, the largest auditorium having 400 seats and the other auditoriums totalling 670 seats.

In 2020 it was completely demolished. Today there is a hotel.

The postcard is from a postcard book, there is a perforation on the left to make it easier to tear off. You can read below the name Real Cinema "Empresa Sagarra" - the name of the cinema company. Unfortuntally, it is not possible to read the names of the advertised films.

Cinema Burg Vogelsang in Schleiden / Germany

 

The Cinema on castle Vogelsang is the low building with the writing Cinema. It was built in the 1950s.

In 1934, the construction of the castle Vogelsang started as one of three so called Ordensburg for training the next generation of leaders of the NSDAP.

After the Second World War, the complex was taken over by the British army, who set up the military training area on 6354 hectares in the surrounding area. From 1950 to the end of 2005 the Belgian military used the area as a military training area and built other buildings on the site of the former Ordensburg. The already completed base and outer walls of the Haus des Wissens (House of Knowledge) planned by the National Socialists were used for the construction of the soldiers' accommodation Van Dooren, so that the angled architectural style is similar to the construction of the buildings from the Nazi era. The Belgian military cinema (later a theater) was built on the neighboring foundation of a planned auditorium. 

The castle has been under monument protection since 1989. In 2016, the Vogelsang International Place with the Nazi documentation Vogelsang and the Eifel National Park Center opened.

The cinema was reopened in 2012. The hall with about 200 seats has been renovated and now shines in the splendor of the 1950s.

Schauburg St. Pauli in Hamburg / Germany

In the course of time there were a total of 12 cinemas called Schauburg in Hamburg. The Schauburg on the postcard is Schauburg St. Pauli  - also called Schauburg am Millerntor. 

On February 24, 1927, the Schauburg am Millerntor opened directly next to the Trichter dance hall on the Reeperbahn. The Schauburg was designed by the architect Carl Winand (1879-1955) in the style of the New Objectivity and had 1,800 seats. The cinema was opened with the film Laster der Menschheit / The Vice of Himanity (Germany 1926), directed by Rudolf Meinert starring Asta Nielsen. She herself was there on this evening. The newspaper wrote: "In precious garb, with a gold ribbon stretched over her forehead, she deigned to watch the game on the white wall from the rank box in the company of her male state."

The first sound film was shown here in Hamburg on January 23, 1929. It was the German film Ich küsse Ihre Hand, Madame / I kiss your hand, Madame with Marlene Dietrich.

The Schauburg was destroyed in an air raid on May 4, 1942. 

Today there isn't any cinema called Schauburg in Hamburg.

On the postcard you can see advertising for the film Die große und die kleine Welt above the entrance and next to the door with Viktor de Kowa and Heinrich George, directed by Johannes Riemann. The film came on March 20, 1936 to German cinemas.

The postcard was sent to the Döhnert siblings from Hamburg to Dresden in 1938. Döhnert was a piano manufacturer in Dresden and the family lived in this house. 

Strandbühne in Kühlungsborn / Germany

 Kühlungsborn has the longest beach promenade in Germany. And there you could find the cinema Strandbühne (Beach Stage). It opened in 1937, planed by the architect Hinrich Plähn. The building was used as a theater and cinema with 399 seats.

A year later, the Reichsstatthalter in Mecklenburg, Friedrich Hildebrandt, awards the municipality the town charter and the name Ostseebad Kühlungsborn in this building.

The postcard was published in 1959, showing the 1958 reconstructed cinema (now with 435 seats). 

The cinema was closed in the 1990s, a restaurant was opened. 

Mestni kino Metropol in Celje / Slovenia

The city Celje is located 70 km  northeast of the Slovenian capital Ljubljana. The celts were here. And it is still a place worth visiting - also because of its cinema.

The Mestni Kino Metropol (City Cinema Metropol) opened in 1936. Its architect was Jože Plečnik. Plečnik (1827-1957) is a famous Slovenian architect, he worked also in Vienna and in Prague. The back of this postcard reminds of him. The photo on the postcard shows the cinema during the Domestic Film Festival in 1978. But the postcard is from the 2020s.

On July 7, 2004, the Filter Creativity Society took over the management of the closed Mestni kino Metropol. The cinema Metropol is now dedicated to domestic, European and independent film. A big vision for a little cinema with 288 seats in one hall. 

In April 2016, cinema Metropol was the cinema of the month on FilmNewEurope.com.

Here you can read more about the history of cinema in Celje.

Kolizey in Yekaterinburg / Russia

The cinema Kolizey (Coliseum) is (or was?) the oldest cinema in Yekaterinburg. The house was built in 1845 as the City Theater, the architect was Karl Tursky (1801-1884). The first cinema screening in Yekaterinburg took place in this house on November 7, 1896. A board on the building remembers this.

In 1914, there was opened the cinema Kolizey. After the 1917 revolution, the cinema was renamed October. In 1968, when the Salut cinema burned down, the October cinema was specialized as a children's cinema.

The historical name was returned in 2002 after the last reconstruction with 2 halls (280 and 33 seats).

When the photo was taken, cinema advertised the movie Garfield 2 (USA, 2006).

The cinema has closed for reconstruction since January 2019.

Dom Kino in Yekaterinburg / Russia

Cinema Dom Kino (House of Cinema) is not the big new house in the foreground.  It's the higher house on the left. You can see a billboard for the movie Девушка из воды / Lady in the Water (USA, 2006) there. (But I bought this postcard with the inscription on the backyard "Dom Kino" ...)

Dom Kino belongs to the Sverdlovsk Regional Organization of the Union of Cinematographers of the Russian Federation and was opened on April 2, 1983. The architect was V.V. Permyakov.

The sculpture Muse Cinema is located above the entrance, created by Andrey Antonov.

There are two halls in the cinema: the big one with 269 seats and the small one with 53 seats.

Today it is one of the most important cultural centers of Yekaterinburg, where major creative and social events, Russian and international film festivals were held. 

It would be glad about a better postcard with this interesting place ... But I am glad finding a Wikipedia-site only for cinemas in Yekaterinburg. Отлично.

Velikan in Sankt-Peterburg / Russia

 

Cinema Velikan (in English: Giant) was built in the end of the 19th century and was used as The People's House of Emperor Nicholas II. Architect was Alexander N. Pomarentsev (1849-1918), he is famous for the GUM department store in Moscow. 

The People's House was a publicly accessible cultural and educational institution in pre-revolutionary Russia (and not only in Russia). They contained libraries, theaters and restaurants and served above all for adult education for both workers and the middle class.  There were 20 people's houses in Saint Petersburg before 1917. In this building there was also an opera hall.

After the revolution of 1917, the people's houses retained their functions under the control of the new government - they became Workers' clubs, Houses of culture and Palaces of culture.

From the first days of the 1917 revolution, the People's House began to be used for various meetings. In May 1917, the 1st All-Russian Congress of Peasant Deputies met here, at which on May 22 V.I.Lenin delivered a big speech on the agrarian question. In 1918, a meeting was held here in honor of Karl Liebknecht's release from prison. In 1919 the city was named Petrograd and the People's House was named after Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.

On August 15, 1924 - now the city was named Leningrad - in this building the largest cinema in the USSR Velikan was opened. It accommodated about 2800 spectators. From 1950 till 1970 it was used as a music hall, and from 1959 till 1978 as a cinema again. 

To demonstrate stereoscopic films, the concert hall of the cinema with 211 seats was converted into Theater Stereokino in 1955.

The postcard is from this time (published in 1954). You can read "Поют - singing" on the ads, but nothing connected with cinema on the picture. There is only written on the backyard: Ленинград кинотеатр "Великан" - Leningrad cinema "Velikan".

On January 1, 1978, the cinema was closed for renovations and alterations of the stage to accommodate a music hall. In May 1988 the Music Hall was opened in this building and and still welcomes its guests to this day.

Leningrad in Sankt-Peterburg / Russia

 

Wikipedia knows:

The house was built in 1910-1914 according to the project of the architect Nikolai N. Ignatiev as an exhibition pavilion of the Imperial Russian Society of Horticulture in the Tavrichesky Garden quarter. In 1955-1956 it was reconstructed into a cinema by the project of the architect I. I. Chashnik. The cinema was opened on November 5, 1958. It was one of the first large-scale projects in this segment. The hall was equipped with a panoramic screen 28 meters wide and 10 meters high, as well as stereo sound.

The cinema had three halls: a hall with a panoramic screen with 1128 seats, Green Hall with 200 seats as a feature film hall and Blue Hall with 200 seats for popular science movies.

The loudest premieres took place here. For a long time Leningrad set the tone for the city's cultural life. By the end of the 20th century, the technical side of the cinema hall became obsolete, and the cinema life of the city moved to shopping and entertainment centers. In 2004 the cinema was closed.

After the reconstruction of the building by Ricardo Bofill in 2014, the Leningrad Center Show Space was opened in the building of the former Leningrad cinema. The art director of the show space is Felix Mikhailov, a well-known Russian theater, film and television director, screenwriter and producer. The repertoire of the show space includes large-scale performances at the intersection of various types of art: theater, musical, circus, ballet, kinetic art, puppet theater, video installations and 3D-mapping. In January 2018, regular film screenings were revived.

The postcard was published in 1959.

Here you can know more about cinemas in Sankt Peterburg.

Salyut in Dnipro / Ukraine

 

Dnipro is since 2016 the name of the Ukrainian city Dnipropetrovsk - like it is written on this 1982 published postcard. I find it remarkable that only the Russian name of the city is printed on the postcard - not the Ukrainian name ...

Cinema Salyut was opened in the spring of 1976 and was presented as a gift to the city for its 200th anniversary (celebrated in May 1976). The cinema was designed for 800 seats.  At the beginning of the 2000s, the cinema was reconstructed and preserved. But the movie has not been shown in it for more than ten years. The building is now abandoned. 

The name refers to the Soviet Salyut programme - the first space station programme, undertaken by the Soviet Union. It involved a series of four crewed scientific research space stations and two crewed military reconnaissance space stations over a period of 15 years, from 1971 to 1986. 

To the left of the entrance you can see advertising for the film Осенний марафон / Autumn Marathon, a 1979 Soviet romantic comedy-drama directed by Georgiy Daneliya and winner of some international awards.

Here you can read more about cinemas in Dnipro.

Rodina in Birobidzhan / Russia

 

Birobidzhan is a town and the administrative center of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Russia, located on the Trans-Siberian Railway, near the China-Russia border. It has 75,413 inhabitants and its official language is Yiddish.

In the thirties, when the construction of the region was in full swing, residents were eagerly awaiting the appearance of a cinema house. The construction of the building was completed in 1937.

Its first name was "Genrikh Kazakevich ”- given in honor of the famous cultural figure Genrikh Kazakevich (1883–1935). Then the name changed Birobidzhan, and now Rodina. 

In 2002, the building of the cinema - one of the oldest in the city - was completely reconstructed. The cinema has two halls: “Black” with 98 seats and “Red” with 170 seats. In the cinema Rodina, there are showing films in Yiddish, Russian and English.

The postcard is from 1971. Unfortunately, it isn't possible to read the films advertised.

Cinema "G.I. Kotovsky" in Bălți / Moldova

 

Cinema Kotovsky was put into operation in 1973, and it became the largest in Moldova. It had two halls: the main one for 1200 seats and the small one for 350 spectators. There were widescreen and stereo sound.

The cinema was named after Grigory Kotovsky (1881-1925), a Soviet military, born in the Bessarabia Governorate.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the cinema began to fade away. But in 2001 it got a second life - it was acquired by a private company from the capital, re-equipped according to modern requirements and given a new name Patria. And in 2015 it closed - low attendance made its operation unprofitable.

Here you can find more information about cinemas in Bălți.

Oktyabr in Taganrog/Russia

 

On skif_tags journal I found a wonderful article with great photos about cinema Oktyabr / October in Taganrog. Here is a part translated into English: 

"The cinema Oktyabr appeared in our city in 1937, to the 20th anniversary of the Great October Revolution, the main holiday of the country of the Soviets.

This was a typical project of the work of the talented architect Viktor Petrovich Kalmykov (1908-1981), who in the early 30s became famous for his futuristic project Saturniy (an international space city built on artificial rings encircling the earth)

But, the architect's real success can be considered his projects of typical cinemas, made in the style of constructivism. Suffice it to say that out of 60 cinemas built from 1935 to 1940 in various cities of the RSFSR, 50 were realized according to the projects of V.P. Kalmykov. For the anniversary of the revolution, cinemas similar to our Oktyabr appeared in many cities of the Soviet Union (Kirov, Frunse, Omsk).

Under German occupation in World War II between 1941 and 1943, the cinema continued to work and considered to soldiers. A musical group under the direction of Makarov performed in front of the audience in the foyer, and on weekends, local residents, everyone who wished, were allowed to see the sessions.

The cinema had two halls, a large one and a small one. A newsreel was shown in the small hall, and when the large hall was vacated, people from the small hall passed into the large one, which was through the wall. And the entire wall was pasted over with movie posters of past years from floor to ceiling. And it was the foremost entertainment to play the game find such and such a movie.

The main feature of the large hall was the gradually fading light. This was not the case in any other cinema in the city."

In 2007 the cinema was closed and the building is used for an alcohol market now ...

Here I found more pictures and information about cinemas in Taganrog. I am really surprised to found in this city of 258 000 inhabitants not only one big enthusiast of history and cinemas.

The postcard was published in 1969. Unfortunately, it isn't possible to read the films advertised.

Kino International in Berlin/Germany - "Königin der Wildnis" + "Eine total, total verrückte Welt"

 

This postcard is a unique piece in my collection of postcards showing the Kino International in Berlin. It was published in the USSR in 1974 and sold for 3 kopeks. Maybe, it was a portfolio of postcards and sold in the shops for the members of the Soviet Army and their families in East Germany (so called magazines).

Two films are advertised on the large poster at the cinema:

- Königin der Wildnis - Born free, the great British movie about the lion Elsa (directed by James Hill, 1966) and

- Eine total, total verrückte Welt - It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (directed by Stanley Kramer, USA 1963).

The first one came to East German cinemas on 4 July 1969, the second one on 2 August 1968. Maybe it was a rerelease of these movies about 1974 (when the postcard was published).

Cinéma Casino in Tébessa / Algeria

  

This postcard is from the 1950s. The building was a multi-purpose event venue, also used as a cinema and casino. Most recently it was called Cinéma Maghreb and closed forever in 2018.

L'Empire Cinéma in Fès / Morocco

 

The construction of the L'Empire Cinéma in Fès began in the summer of 1931 with the Empire-Jardin, an outdoor cinema venue. The architect of the cinema with 1800seats was François Robert (born in 1902 in Charleville), who worked for the company Balima and designed for it the Balima hotels in Rabat and Ifrane, as well as other buildings on avenue Mohammed V in Rabat and around it. 
Mr. Joseph Seiberras from Malta (1886-1942) was the owner not only of this emblematic cinema of the colonial period in Morocco, but also of forty other cinemas built at the time in Algeria and Morocco.
The cinema was closed in 2012, demolished and replaced by the Mégarama Fès, a multiplex cinema.

About the history of cinemas in Fès look here.

Gloria in Weissenfels/Germany

 

I met the Gloria cinema in Weissenfels in summer 2013. On the way to the holidays destination on the Unstrut river, we got off the train with our bikes in Weissenfels. And immediately came across this impressive building (look the train on the postcard). It's a big box, unfortunately empty for many years.

The Gloria has had better days. It was opened on October 18, 1928. The architect was Carl Fugmann. The remarkable building in the Bauhaus style impresses with its nested cubes, slotted windows with originally preserved lattice division and a corner structure with brick strips. The neon sign Gloria was placed directly on the street. The cinema had 1.200 seats and was also used for congresses and variety events. It was already equipped with modern air conditioning and red plush armchairs.

It is a really big cinema for a city with 40.000 inhabitants. But Weissenfels is (or was?) an important industrial city, famous for shoe manufacturing and the food industry.

In 1991, the UFA-Theater AG took over the cinema. In 1994 a discotheque moved into the building, which had to close three years later. The building was emergency secured in 2019. And it is a listed historical monument. It was never parted in smaller halls.

The postcard was printed shortly after the opening. You can see at the cinema advertising for the film Dulderin Weib / Tesha with Maria Corda. This film was released in German cinemas in 1928. 

The postcard was sent in October 1943. Pierre wrote to his wife Suzan. He was a French slave laborer in Weissenfels and worked in a factory that was on the same street as the cinema. He walked past the cinema every day. I hope Pierre and Suzan saw each other again ...

I met another cinema designed by Carl Fugmann in my next holidays, the Centralkino in Wittenberg.

Vielen Dank an Greta, die mir die Postkarte übersetzte!

Kino International in Berlin/Germany - "Die Perle" 1964

 

This is already my 25th postcard showing Kino International in Berlin (counted according to the poster motif). The postcard is extra large (21,4 cm x 10,3 cm) and was sold with an envelope. It was made by Graphokopie H. Sander K.G. Berlin and was published by Berlin Werbung Berolina.

The poster on the cinema building advertises the film Die Perle / The Pearl / La perla - a 1947 Mexican-American film directed by Emilio Fernández. It is based on the 1947 novella The Pearl by John Steinbeck, who also co-wrote the screenplay.

The film came to East German cinemas on May 26, 1964. It was shown already August 12, 1950 in the West German cinemas with the titel Mexikanische Romanze - but only 77 min of total 85 min.

In 2002, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The poster was designed by Horst Klöpfel.

Cinema Teatro in Asmara / Eritrea

 

Cinema Teatro in Asmara - today Teatro Asmara - is a late eclectic historicism building in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, and part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site  Asmara: A Modernist City of Africa.

The building was designed as an opera house and was completed in 1920 according to plans by Odoardo Cavagnari (1868–1920). The design of the immediate area could no longer be completed, as the sponsoring company went bankrupt in 1924. 

The as yet unused area in the vicinity of the opera house fell to the state, which sold it to investors in 1927, who built shops and a dance hall here 10 years later. The opera house itself has been converted into a cinema. Since then, there has been a café in the foyer. The building was used as a cinema until 1957.

After the federation of Eritrea and Ethiopia in 1952, under pressure from the Ethiopian viceroy, the building was sold to the state by the Italian owners at a price that was far below its value, and according to other sources, it was sold to a son-in-law of the then Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie. 

After Eritrea gained independence in 1991/93, it was transferred to the state property of the new state. The main office of the national telephone provider Eritel is located in a side building and the actual opera house is occasionally used as a theater.

In Asmara there are still other worth seeing cinemas like Cinema Impero, Cinema Roma and Cinema Odeon.