Another one bites the dust
Due to the sharp fall in the number of theatre audience for commercial movies, curtains are being drawn on a 28-year-old cinema hall in Bogura's Dhunat upazila.
Sikta Cinema Hall Private Limited is being demolished after a run that started in 1992, beginning with the movie 'Swapner Thikana' and ending with 'Beporowa'. The demolition work began on Monday.
Zahid Hossain Mukta, one of the owners said, "We made profit till 2015, but it has dried up since then. In fact, things got so bad that we counted losses of Tk 2.5 lakh last Eid-ul-Azha."
"I have even had to sell land to try to continue the hall, but this is not sustainable anymore," he lamented, "I have decided to demolish the hall and construct a market in its place."
Aynal Haque, secretary of Dhunat Upazila Theatre, said, "It comes down to the lack of good cinemas. People of the area used to come to the hall even a couple of years ago, but that's not the case now."
"The government should patronise the film industry and provide subsidies to cinema hall owners," he added.
"A culture of watching good movies can be beneficial for society," said Ziaul Haque, a lecturer at a local college. "Dhunat used to be a centre of good entertainment, but those days have passed. In fact, no one even bat an eye at the hall's closure."
"There were three cinema halls in Dhunat town, but all of them have shut down now. Cleopatra Cinema Hall (established in the 80s) and Jhankar Cinema Hall (established in the 90s) have both shut down for similar reasons, said Ziaul Haque.
Contacted, senior district information officer Mazibur Rahman told The Daily Star, "Just 10 years ago, 37 cinema halls were running across the district, but now only four remain, both in Bogura's Adamdighi upazila."
But there's a silver lining. A cineplex named Madhuban has been erected where Cleopatra used to stand, which promises to bring in a new generation of moviegoers to the halls. However, though it was completed early last year, it hit a stumbling block in the form of the coronavirus pandemic and is yet to formally launch.
Saik Eunus, one of the owners of Madhuban Cineplex said, "Government did not allow halls to fill 100 percent of audience capacity yet, and there are no new movie releases. So we can't go for full operation at the moment."
Mentionable, the government has recently taken an initiative to provide loans of lowest interest to cinema hall owners from a Tk 1000 crore fund to patron the renovation and modernisation of movie theatres in the country.
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