Uránia in Budapest / Hungary

 

Uránia Nemzeti Filmszínház / Urania National Film Theatre is the most beautiful cinema in Budapest and home to a film and cinema-loving audience with film festivals, gala premieres and other prestigious film-professional events.

It was built by Kálmán Rimanóczy (1840-1908), a building contractor from Oradea, in the mid-1890s. Henrik Schmahl (1849-1912) from Hamburg was the architect. He created the building in the popular Oriental style. The architect was originally commissioned to create a music and dance hall which opened as a cabaret called Oroszi Caprice (Russian Caprice),

In 1899 opened here the Uránia Science Theatre. The name Urania is connected with the idea and movement of free education for adults in the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1897, on the initiative of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Uránia Educational Association was founded, which aimed to popularize science. It held regularly lectures and readings for the citizens of Budapest. In 1899, the Uránia Science Theatre was equipped with a projection system suitable for the presentation of still images and later moving images - the Uránia Film Theatre was born.

This place Uránia is also famous for the first staged Hungarian film - A táncz (1901). Scenes of the film were shot on the roof terrace of the Uránia Science Theatre by Béla Zsitkovszky (1868-1930).  But not a single copy of the film has been preserved, only the printed text of the performance, some photos from the shooting and the stage sheet. In commemoration of the first screening of this film, Hungarian Film Day has been celebrated on April 30 since 2018.

From 1916, Uránia offered cinema programmes every evening. Scientific lectures were reduced to the afternoons and over time canceled at all.

In 1930, the German UFA film factory bought the cinema and it became an UFA Palace. There were showed mainly UFA films with great success. After World War II, it became a Sovexport cinema. Later, the building returned to Hungarian ownership and became a popular cinema in the capital.

In 2002, the building was restored to its original beauty. Now it has a great hall with a total capacity of 425 people and two chamber halls for 60 people. These halls named after two legendary personalities of the Hungarian film history, the film director Zoltán Fábri (1917-1994) and the actor Gyula Csortos (1883-1945).

In 2006, the Uránia Nemzeti Filmszínház received the European Union's Europa Nostra Prize for outstanding monument restoration.

In the same building, there is also the Színház- és Filmművészeti Egyetem, the University of Theatre and Film Studies

The postcard was published in 2024, the photo was taken by Ibolya Balla. The cinema advertises the 14. Frankofón Filmnapok - Francophone Film Days.