The Death of Cinema? Say it Ain’t So…

Berlinale Palast, 2020, © Hind Mezaina

Cinemas around the world are empty. Many at home are watching films or TV shows mostly on streaming platforms or video-on-demand or TV (or illegal downloads, which is the norm here in the UAE).

There have been several articles published in the past few weeks declaring this pandemic may be the watershed moment for the cinema industry which will never recover. There are also articles stating the importance of the communal experience which will never go away and people will be rushing to the cinemas as soon as that moment arrives. I’m in the later camp and CANNOT WAIT TO GO BACK TO THE CINEMA.

Surprisingly, there appears to be a revival of drive-in cinemas in a few cities in the US and also in Korea. How I wish Rex Drive-In Cinema in Dubai was never demolished.

My cinema going experience has never been about a communal experience, the less people in the cinema, the better. For me, it’s about watching films the way they are meant to be watched, on the big screen. Uninterrupted and distraction free viewing. A few hours in a dark room where you can escape or hide from the world. This is something I can never experience at home, unless I build my own home theatre.


Despite all the struggling businesses and industries, online streaming platforms seems to be doing very well during this pandemic.

Several film festivals decided to go ahead online instead of cancelling, examples include CPH:DOX and Ann Arbor Film Festival.

There’s a Netflix Party Chrome extension where you can watch a film simultaneously with family and friends (it was called TV back in the day!).

A few film distributors in the US are testing ways of releasing new films online. Kino Lorber is trying a ‘virtual theatrical release’ with Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles, 2019), where revenues will be shared with the participating independent theatres (viewers can select which cinema in the US they want to support when they pay to watch the film).

Magnolia Pictures Virtual Cinema is doing the same thing with The Whistlers (Corneliu Porumboiu, 2019), Once Were Brothers ( Daniel Roher, 2020) and Slay the Dragon (Christopher Durrance, Barak Goodman, 2019). Grasshopper Film is releasing The Hottest August (Brett Story, 2019) the same way too.

In the UK, Curzon Cinemas released a few new titles including The Perfect Candidate (Haifa Al Mansour, 2019) and The Truth (Hirokazu Kore-Eda, 2020) on its pre-existing VOD platform Curzon Home Cinema.

We are also seeing earlier than scheduled releases on VOD in the US and UK for films like The Invisible Man (Leigh Whannell, 2020) and Emma. (Autumn de Wilde, 2020), reducing the usual 90+ days between cinema and home release. Will this reduced window be the new norm, if/when things eventually become normal again?

Many are trying and testing whatever they can to earn some revenue, so it will be interesting to see if cinemas and distributors outside the US and UK will follow the virtual theatrical release model too.


What’s happening in the UAE?

The main cinema chains in the UAE belong to bigger enterprises, Vox Cinemas is part of Majid Al Futtaim, Reel Cinemas is part of Emaar and Roxy belongs to Meraas. Only one chain, Novo Cinemas is owned by a film distributor, Gulf Film. As for independent cinemas, there is Mirage City Cinema, an open-air cinema run by Sharjah Art Foundation and Cinema Akil an independently run cinema in partnership with Alserkal Avenue in Dubai. 

It has been a few weeks since they closed their doors and these are circumstances new to all, so it is understandable that not all cinemas here have figured out the best way to communicate next steps or engage with the cinema community here.

I’ve mostly seen tame attempts, at one end, Vox is promoting home delivery pop-corn and sharing posts about franchise films on its social media accounts, and on the other end, Cinema Akil has been sharing on its Instagram account lists of “Films You Should See” according to film directors like Akira Kurosawa and Martin Scorsese, and “collaborators, thought and creative leaders”, and on April 2 it announced a promo of 3 months of free viewing on the film streaming service, Mubi.
(🙋🏻 a long time subscriber myself, since 2008).

For the past couple of weeks, Dubai based film distributors like Front Row Filmed Entertainment LLC  and Gulf Film have been promoting on their social media accounts films that can be rented on VOD platforms like iTunes and Google Play or streaming on Netflix.

Perhaps the cinemas and distributors are sitting it out and not interested pivoting to virtual theatrical releases. Or perhaps they are not agile enough or lack the infrastructure to make decisions that brings in revenue like the distributors and cinemas in the US and UK. It will be interesting to see what happens a few weeks from now, if staying at home is still a must.

But the past few weeks has definitely revealed the lack of innovative ways to engage with the cinema going community here. I’ve seen cinemas in other cities engaging with their communities through podcasts, music, writings, and fun discussions on their social media accounts like sharing favourite film memories, and even organising online film quiz events.

Only Sharjah Art Foundation and Cinema Space have found ways to actively engage with their community members when it comes to watching films together, albeit it is done online.

Sharjah Art Foundation started weekly free ‘virtual screenings’ since March 27, listing the film and timings on the foundation’s event page, where you can only watch the film by joining the starting time, which is normally 8.30pm on Fridays. So far they screened Black Girl (Ousmane Sembène, 1966) and The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni (Rania Stephan, 2011).
The Abu Dhabi based film club Cinema Space, which normally screens films in Manarat Al Saadiyat, has been hosting Netflix Party screenings since March 23.

For both Sharjah Art Foundation and Cinema Space, it means more people around the UAE and even outside UAE can engage with these two entities, and perhaps creates more awareness about what they do. Hopefully once they can show films in their spaces, more people will turn up.

On a more serious note, whilst there have been several articles about cinemas in other countries that are under threat from ever making a comeback after this crisis, there have been no official news or articles about the impact on cinemas here. I did, however, read that Vox Cinemas redeployed more than 1,000 employees across the region to take on roles at Carrefour, “the redeployment programme is designed to provide employees with an opportunity to retrain within the Majid Al Futtaim ecosystem”. It is not clear though if any of the cinema employees lost jobs.

As for filmmakers based here, I am certain many have work on hold. I’ve not seen any filmmakers here find ways to share their works, so again, maybe things will change if we stay at home longer.

Not sure if there will be any form of financial relief for cinemas and filmmakers here. If, as predicted, this pandemic could last for many more months, will the “virtual theatrical release” make its way here?

It is worrying to see how soon the shift to online streaming by film festivals and distributors in partnership with cinemas in the past few weeks. Surely I’m not the only one concerned with the increased number of people watching films online at home, it normalises home viewing even more.

Will people get used to watch brand new releases from the comfort of their homes and expect that to continue when things go back to normal, if we can even go back to the normal we’ve known before the pandemic?

Many in the UAE complain about the cinema-going experience because of bad cinema etiquette and more likely prefer to watch films in their homes.

Maybe now is a time for the cinemas here to think about winning back more visitors, and not just by promising the best technical systems in their cinemas and food they serve, but also by what films they show, and being strict about cinema etiquette. Vox Cinemas introduced ‘distraction free’ screenings last year for a limited number of films (no phone, no talking, no late entry), but the reality is all film screenings should be distraction free.

I do think there can be a balance found with theatrical releases and home releases, it just means cinemas and streaming platforms need to work more closely together and find solutions that work for both sides, and the consumers. Last year, an article stated viewers who stream more also go to cinemas more. My favourite quote from it is by Charles Rivkin, CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, “Everyone has a kitchen, but everyone still goes out to eat.”

As for film festivals, besides being gatherings for cinephiles around the world, they play an important role in helping films and filmmakers get exposure to film critics, distributors, plus networking and film funding opportunities. Plus the prestige and potential awards of showing films at certain film festivals. Hopefully we don’t have to worry about the demise of film festivals as we know it.

The worry here is about cinemas. But it’s also worth remembering this isn’t the first time cinemas have shut their doors due to a pandemic, in 1918, Hollywood and cinemas faced a similar crisis caused by the Spanish Flu.

Despite pundits hailing the end of cinema and feeding to the egos of streaming companies, especially in the US, globally there’s a strong tradition of cinema-going that hopefully will not disappear after the pandemic.

Yes, these are uncertain times and cinemas worldwide are in current financial ruins, but hopefully there’s enough of us who will rush to the cinemas - whether it’s to watch a film at our favourite independent cinema and/or multiplex, to help cinemas everywhere recover.