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Photo: The Nation
The Kenya Cinema Plaza in Nairobi (photo archive).
By John Kamau
In Nairobi, you can get a movie that is only a few weeks old on a fake DVD – and no one will take you for a thief!
Online hackers continue to kill – and it seems that no one considers this illegal trade as such.
Cinematheques proliferate on stolen property, copyright is violated, and our efforts to make sense of the creative industry have dwindled over time.
Guilt feeling buying counterfeit movies – perhaps because it's considered a victimless crime.
But is it?
BLACKLISTED
Nairobi is now a cinemas graveyard – and those who walked in this city from the '60s to the' 90s have nostalgic memories of Odeon Cinema, Globe Cinema, Shan Cinema, Embbady, Cameo Cinema, ABC, Kenya Cinema, Fox Drive-In, Bellevue and 20th Century. Outside the 20th century, which still has a presence in Nairobi, the rest is a dead affair – and all we have about them are memories.
Before its closure, Globe Cinema was a known base for Indian and Hollywood films. philanthropic activities. It is here that Daniel arap Moi would organize fundraisers for various national projects, including the construction of the Armed Forces Military Hospital.
The fall began when the parent company of Globe Cinema, Grand Theater Ltd, was barred from the rights of a distributor. After being blacklisted, his last activities were limited to the management of the bar and restaurant Castilo in the 1970s – which was not his core business.
103 YEARS
Today, the name Globe Cinema is only badociated with Thika at the roundabout on Superhighway-Kirinyaga Street and Kijabe Street. The Cinema Room is today a church
And it is one of the indicators of the serious consideration of the author's rights of yesteryear – it could basically and for good, knock down an established movie theater. of the technology that seems to have given the film – and the music industry – the biggest test and today we only have a living memory about the damage done to some iconic cinemas.
When the history of cinemas in this country is finally written both Cameo and Odeon Cinema should have some space and that is why I would like to celebrate their place in Kenya.
This year, Cameo Cinema will celebrate 103 years since its construction and Nairobi owes it to the memory of Simon "Teddy" Medicks, the Jewish business man who put together what was known as Theater Royal on Sixth Avenue – while Kenyatta Avenue was first known.
MILITARY
But Medicks, who was a member of the tiny but rich Hebrew Congregation in Nairobi, was lucky. His small theater was criticized by critics as a "flea pit", perhaps because it was one of the first entertainment venues to compete with a dance club that had been opened at Parklands
. "The Royal Theater of Nairobi has sprung up in lonely splendor amid the surrounding wasteland of those early days."
Once again, we know that Medicks handed the building over to the army after the outbreak of the First World War. recruiting room for volunteers. It was also the theater of the garrison where plays were also performed – before the construction of the National Theater (Kenya).
Anyone who looks at Cameo cinema today would not imagine this secular description, but what we know about the archives An immigrant from Poland had also tried to build another cinema hall known as the 39; Empire and that he then sold to South Africans under the aegis of New Theater Limited.
SARCASM
that was the place where the colonial elite of Nairobi could hold meetings to welcome newcomers.
It is here that Governor Edward Northey confronted European settlers in February 1919 when they chose a maverick named Col Ewart Grogan (The Man (19659018) Grogan, a master of sarcasm, said, "Before we go to work with you, sir, before we present you all our countless woes, in the last 14 years we have the right to know if you have been sent here as another telephone girl. .. "
" This country is not willing to be ruled by secretarial officers, men of little brains creatures that crawl to the bottom of the sea … we want people who have a vision beyond the tip of the nose … "
MISCHIEVOUS
People used these skits at the Royal Theater, but on several occasions he could also conduct serious political affairs.
During the First and Second World Wars, it was the dregs u fund raising and that is why two monuments were erected outside the cinema hall to commemorate the heroic deeds of the soldiers.
This film company was later bought by Edgar Clifton who had worked at Thika Road Theater (later Fox Drive-In). It was a malicious character. Once, after being stopped by the police, he noticed that rather than writing Edgar on the indictment, the officer had written Edward. He waited for the case to begin when he refused to answer the prosecution.
Idi Amin
Clifton is credited for redesigning the Cameo building after spending several weeks in Western capitals to see what they had. In total, he visited 35 cinemas in Spain, Germany and Austria
MATATU STAGE
In fact, the building we see today is not the 1912 structure as a such. Clifton had stripped the Royal Theater of the walls and sunk £ 30,000 to build a cinema that was then a state-of-the-art structure.
He not only overturned part of the structure of the Edwardian-style Royal Theater, but also repaired two mbadive pillars on the sides that are still available today.
Cameo, when it opened again, was the only movie theater in East Africa with Twin Zeiss Ikon projectors. The first post-independence administrators were R.P Shah and his nephew C.G. Shah. Another was the first African to enter the film industry, Noah Kamau, whose family had run for years the company with other smaller cinemas in Eastlands, especially Bahati, Makadara and Ruaraka.
The disappearance of Cameo was a direct result of the competition and the emergence of pirated films. It might also not be facing the entrance of big theaters that have worked together with distribution companies to bid.
The story of Odeon is almost similar. Although many young Nairobians know Odeon as a Matatu scene rather than a movie theater, it is here that the founder of Odeon Cinema Oscar Deutsch had devised a community theater for the city. The word is an adaptation of the Greek word odeion which denotes a building for musical performance.
PASSIVE
Deutsch had sold the Nairobi franchise to Mr Dahyabhal K. Patel and soon he became one of the most popular movie theaters in East Africa [19659041] Odeon Cinemas was a large chain and its entry into Nairobi was an indicator that there was then faith in the colony. But before Odeon became a business, Oscar Deutsch died of cancer at the age of 48 and the Mau Mau war broke out. To make matters worse, the colonial elite that had been targeted began to have doubts about their stay in Kenya.
Although the world business was bought by a Yorkshire miller and a film enthusiast, Joseph Arthur Rank, she began to suffer. the decisions. After the 1950s, he began investing in photocopy papers and joined the American Xerox company to form what became Rank Xerox.
Although Odeon managed to open a movie theater in Nakuru City, the settlers' bastion, few customers and Mr. Patel, the concessionaire, suffered economic devastation. In 1959, as the political winds turned to an African-led government, Mr. Patel managed to sell his franchise to Indian Film Combine Ltd. – only that he did not disclose some responsibilities he had in Odeon, Nairobi. It did, however, retain the Nakuru enterprise which was headed by a new company, Odeon Theaters Ltd.
FRANCHISE
If you refer to Gazette Notice No. 384 of 1959, you will see a fraudulent transfer notice. Indian Business Ordinance in which Indian Film Combine stated not to take over the responsibilities previously contracted by Mr. Patel.
Indian Film had a good run and it's Odeon Cinema brand image that gave its name to the scene. They managed to direct the cinema until March 1, 1969, when their lease of the building came to an end and the franchise was taken over by Kenya Exhibitors Ltd, a company that had native Kenyans as directors .
After Mr Rank's release from the film industry, Odeon could not deal with a franchise. It was a citadel of old movies until it was closed for lack of customers.
Looks like all the movie theaters in Nairobi have followed the same path: they are transformed first into religious enterprises before becoming boutiques or offices.
Cameo, Shan Cinema (Ngara) and Embbady (next to Odeon) became churches before being taken over by other companies. There was ABC cinema near the Kamukunji Police Station – where I watched Rise and Fall from Idi Amin many years ago.
PRESERVED
Shan Cinema, once a bastion of Indian films, is today known as the Dome and is home to Sarakasi Trust, an artistic and cultural enterprise
Finally, Odeon Cinema has been transformed into an education center with Kenya Aviation College which opened its Nairobi campus
Many Generation Y members have not found any Odeon screening any film – and with the Odeon neon long gone, many would wonder why this place is known by that name.
But those of my generation will remember that we watched films by Chuck Norris and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the last days of the Odeon before Pastor Pius Muiru settled in and replaced us.
But it is not the evangelism that has ate our movie theaters; it's rather the rise of counterfeits and our inability to invest in the industry.
Simply put, we have ignored the area and all we have is these historical relics – which should be kept as monuments.
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