Movie theatres need massive investments

“The Romanian cinema has been ailing for 12 years now. In the beginning, it was just the flu, which got film producers complaining, but movie theatres were full anyway. Later, it caught all kinds of viruses, as it dealt with negative influences from all sides.

Now, the Romanian cinema won’t even budge. Fewer spectators are coming to see a movie, while producers are making fewer films, which are less successful from the audience point of view,” says Constantin Fugasin, director of Champions, the only agency in Romania dealing with cinema productions and centralising the information from the market.

Domestic cinema, in particular and the Romanian cinema market, in general, depend on the soundness of the theatre network, which is uncertain for the time being.

“Privatisation has not got the green light yet, while no serious campaign to rehabilitate the halls has been undertaken at a governmental level yet. The state is their owner for the time being, but legislation is ambiguous, the halls are national patrimony, either private or public, so no clear decision regarding privatisation in this field has been made yet,” Fugasin says.

According to him, those who invested in the rehabilitation of movie theatres were deceived.

“There were some people, very few, who invested and were fooled, as every time the heads of Romanian cinema were changed, the commitment to serious privatisation was trumpeted.

Some appeals to those willing to invest in cinema halls were launched and one or two naives grabbed that chance, believing in ordinances and government decisions stipulating that the first step was an association contract.

One particular theatre was to be taken over only for several months, while they were investing thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars. The years passed but they never recovered their investment.”

Ion Ionescu, general manager of “Quality Cinema Bucharest,” is one of the investors who really tried to do something. He concluded an association contract with the Bucharest subsidiary of RADEF (Autonomous Regie of Film Distribution and Exploitation) in 1994.

The contract aimed at Cotroceni cinema hall, which was an abandoned building 7-8 years ago. Following an investment of 120,000 dollars, Glendale Studio turned into one of the most attractive places in Bucharest.

It remained so for years, as it was a civilised movie theatre, with air conditioned and dolby-stereo system, where ticket reservations could be made by phone.

Ionescu, who is disappointed by the relation with the competitors and by legislation in this field, is thinking about leaving this business. “I cannot fight against a mammoth such as RADEF, which practices unfair competition,” he says.