Frankfurt / Main (dpa / lhe) – “Caligari”, “Filminsel” and “Burg-Lichtspiele”: municipal cinemas have a permanent place in the Hessian cultural landscape. This week, one of the oldest municipal cinemas in Germany is celebrating its 50th anniversary: the cinema in the German Film Museum, once known as “KoKi” and later renamed “Kino des DFF”. On December 3, 1971, a silent film series with comedian Buster Keaton opened the program. The celebration is now with the revival of films that ran 50 years ago – in the midst of a time marked by the pandemic that is causing problems for many houses.
Cinemas sponsored by the municipalities already existed at the beginning of the 20th century. These community theaters showed films that were supposed to educate. Municipal cinemas adhere to this claim to this day in order to set themselves apart from commercial buildings. After the Second World War, film clubs with cultural ambitions emerged again. According to the Federal Association of Municipal Film Work, there are currently around 15 of different sizes and with different concepts in Hesse.
But Corona is also causing massive problems there, as the association chairman Andreas Heidenreich says. Because the cinemas live from volunteer work. In order not to get infected, older helpers in particular had withdrawn. The cinemas actually need more employees because of the control of the Corona requirements, because every single visitor has to be checked.
“There are many helpers who are simply afraid of getting infected – and then stay away,” says Joachim Pollitt from the municipal cinema of the city of Weiterstadt (Darmstadt-Dieburg district). Accordingly, the staff halved during the time when the cinemas in Hesse were closed.
In addition, the number of viewers is still extremely low. “We have had evenings with fewer than ten spectators since the beginning of the pandemic,” reports Pollitt. Edgar Langer, founder of the “Traumstern” cinema in Lich (Gießen district), also reports audience numbers “in the single-digit range”. The art house cinema in Central Hesse, which was founded in 1983 and has won multiple awards, wants to offer a program in December “as if nothing were happening” – despite the corona restrictions – in order to do justice to its self-imposed social mandate.
According to Heidenreich, the existing problems are being joined by public funding: “There are still no major cuts, but I am concerned that this will be a problem in one or two years.” The municipalities would have more spending and less income because of the corona pandemic. The Frankfurt municipal cinema was also supposed to be closed in the 1990s for reasons of economy. The decision was reversed after protests, today it belongs to the association “DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum”.
The cinema as a social and cultural place must be preserved, demands Heidenreich. “We are all trying to make a contribution to the region – and we just hope that the situation will get better,” says Langer. “Don’t give up, we have to go through it together.” Even if there is currently no perspective – there is currently no money to be made from cinema.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 211130-99-194163 / 3
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