Nairobi now a cinemas cemetery

The Kenya Cinema Plaza in Nairobi. PHOTO | FILE

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 withered over time.

guilt buying counterfeit movies – perhaps because it's considered a victimless crime.

But is it?

NOSTALGIC MEMORIES

Nairobi is now a cinemas cemetery – and who has traveled 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 the 20th century. 20th century that still has a presence in Nairobi, the rest are dead b Usiness – and all we have about them are memories.

Before closing, Globe Cinema was a known base for Indian and Hollywood films as well as for philanthropic activities. It is here that Daniel arap Moi organized fundraisers for various national projects, including the construction of the Memorial Armed Forces Hospital

The fall began when the parent company of Globe Cinema, Grand Theater Ltd, was prevented from continuing. the author rights of a distributor. After being blacklisted, his latest activities were limited to managing the Castilo bar and restaurant in the 1970s – which was not his core business.

Today, the name Globe Cinema is only badociated with the Thika Superhighway-Kirinyaga and Kijabe roundabout highways. The cinema hall is today a church.

And it's one of the indicators of how copyright has been taken seriously sometime – it could basically, and for good, shoot down an established movie theater [19659015]. TECHNOLOGY

This is the advent of technology that seems to have given the film – and the music industry – the greatest test and today we do not have the We have a living memory about the damage done to some iconic cinemas.

The history of movie theaters in this country is finally written, Cameo and Odeon Cinema should have a bit of space and that is why I would like to celebrate their place in Kenya.

This year, the Cameo Cinema will celebrate 103 years since its creation. Nairobi built and built in memory of Simon "Teddy" Medicks, the Jewish business man who set up what was known as Royal Theater on Sixth Avenue – as Kenyatta Avenue was known for the first time time.

But Medicks, who was a member of the tiny but wealt by the Hebrew Congregation of Nairobi, had little luck. 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."

Again, we know from the records that after the outbreak of World War I, Medicks handed the building back to the army. recruiting room for volunteers. It was also the theater of the garrison where plays were also presented – before the construction of the National Theater (Kenya).

Anyone looking at Cameo Cinema today would not imagine this secular description but what we do know about the archives, is that this Jewish immigrant from Poland had also been trying to build another room. film known as the Empire and that he later sold to some South Africans under the aegis of New Theaters Limited.

COLONIAL ELITE

The Cameo Building 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 who built Getrude Children's Hospital) to deliver a clbadic welcome speech.

Grogan, a master of sarcasm said, "Before we sit down to business with you, sir, before you tabulate one of our innumerable woes of the last 14 years, we have the right to know if you have been sent here as another phone girl … "

" This country is not willing to be ruled by secretarial officers, creatures that crawl to the bottom of the sea … we want people with a vision that extends beyond the tip of the nose … "

People were used to these skits at the Royal Theater, but on several occasions they could also contain

During the First and Second World Wars, it has become the fundraising hall and that is why two monuments were erected outside the movie theater to commemorate the heroic deeds of the soldiers

. 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.

REDESIGNING BUILDING

Clifton is credited with 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

In fact, the building we see today is not the 1912 structure as 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 world, Noah Kamau, whose family had run for years the company with other smaller cinemas in Eastlands, particularly Bahati, Makadara and Ruaraka

. competition and the emergence of pirated films. It might also not be facing the entrance of big theaters that have worked with the companies offering distribution.

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.

Deutsch had sold the franchise of Nairobi to Mr. Dahyabhal K. Patel and soon became one of the most popular movie theaters in East Africa

. ] MAU MAU WAR

The Odeon cinemas were a large chain and his 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 doubt his 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 with the American company Xerox to form what became Rank Xerox.

Although Odeon managed to open a movie theater in Nakuru City, the settlers' stronghold, few customers and Mr. Patel, the dealer, 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 has, however, retained the Nakuru enterprise which was headed by a new company, Odeon Theaters Ltd.

If you look at the Kenya Gazette Gazette No. 384 of 1959, you will see a notice under the Fraudulent Transfer of Business Ordinance. Combine stated that it did not take over the responsibilities previously contracted by Mr. Patel.

Indian Film had a good run and it's Odeon Cinema branding 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.

RELIGIOUS ENTERPRISES

Seems like all the movie theaters of yesteryear in Nairobi follow a similar path: in religious businesses before they become stores or businesses. 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 looked Rise and Fall of Idi Amin several years ago.

Shan Cinema, once the bastion of Indian films, is now known as the Dome. Finally, Odeon Cinema was transformed into an education center with Kenya Aviation College, which opened its Nairobi campus.

Many Generation Y members could not find Odeon showing films. – And with the neon of Odeon for a long time, many would wonder why this place is known by this 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. Pastor Pius Muiru has settled in and replaced us.

But it is not the evangelism that 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.