Reviving Zanzibar's oldest theatre

The once imperial building in the historic Stone Town of Zanzibar now stands dilapidated. It is a pale shadow of its once thriving stature as one of Africa’s first cinema halls.

Unlike the busier times when it still screened, the Majestic is shorn of its grandeur; the imposing architectural masterpiece stands only as a monument to a bygone era when the cinema attracted film lovers eager to watch the regular blockbusters screened there.

The Royal Cinema Theatre, as it was known, has once before emerged from its ruins. In 1953, the hall was destroyed by a fire and replaced two years later by a cinema hailed as one of best designs of the time, where locals thronged to watch mainly Indian and Egyptian films and some Western classics.

Amidst the coconut palm fringed golden sand in this tropical island, the Majestic standing on the Indian Ocean island is desolate, with a leaking roof and broken chairs inside the hall, but the state of the cinema has not stopped locals from watching films here.

This was the only remaining cinema on the island after another venue, the Cine Afrique, was recently closed and turned into a supermarket. As it is, plans are underway to convert the Majestic into an office block for civil servants.

No cinema halls

“Even though there is no roof on the cinema at the moment, the local people often set up a projector of their own and screen films, even if it rains on their heads,” says visiting English filmmaker Nick Broomfield.

The award-winning director behind documentaries like Biggie and Tupac and Battle for Haditha, has been holding workshops at this year’s Zanzibar International Film Festival ( ZIFF). He has used this platform of the East Africa’s biggest arts and film festival to launch a campaign to restore the Majestic Cinema to its former glory.

Despite having the longest running and most popular art and film festival in East Africa, the island of Zanzibar has no working cinemas. Originally called the Festival of the Dhow Countries, the festival now in it’s 14th year, attracted an attendance of up to 45,000 foreign visitors from 52 countries and more than 120,000 local guests to the twin islands of Zanzibar and Pemba as well as mainland Tanzania in 2010.

“People are attracted to the festival for its outdoor setting and the unique cultural heritage of the Indian Ocean region,” says Festival director Martin Mhando.

"If the Majestic is refurbished properly, people will watch movies there regularly.”

The port of Stone Town in Zanzibar, on which the cinema stands, was named a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2000 for, among other historical attributes, its outstanding manifestation of cultural fusion and harmonisation. The Majestic is therefore an essential part of the protected heritage of the town, which is also fondly known as Mji Mkongwe, the Kiswahili name for Old Town.

The memories

Mhando disagrees with those who are calling for the construction of a new cinema, saying this would be like killing the memories of the thousands of people who though the years have sat and watched films in the Majestic.

“Sitting in a dark hall with different people while a movie rolls on the big screen is a human experience and destroying these memories would be similar to committing a crime against humanity,” he says.

“What we need is an expert to lead the restoration of the old cinema,”

This work will not come cheap despite the best efforts of some of the world’s leading filmmakers who are backing the campaign, with the bill expected to hit $500,000.

The plan is to turn the Majestic into a 200-seat multipurpose venue to host corporate events, seminars and workshops and of course to act as the headquarters of ZIFF.

The festival, which this year showcased 71 films and 6 World Premiers, currently uses a cinema on the nearby island of Pemba

The fate of the Majestic is a mirror of the vanishing cinema culture across the continent in general and East Africa in particular, which has forced the closure of established cinemas.

The sale of pirated DVDs has seen the rise of makeshift video halls across the region, often screening poor copies of Hollywood films on no more than a 20 inch TV screen or a screen projector.

The decline

Economic reasons have played a major part in the decline of the cinema culture with the movie hall tickets having been priced out of the reach of the average film lover in most parts of Africa.

“While the cinema, as we know it, might be in its death throes, the video hall with a capacity of just 30 people and catering to the low income population, is thriving mainly due to the minimal cover charge of about $0.30,” says Mhando.

He says that while the large cinema halls have been turned into churches and offices, the video halls are now a permanent fixture in the big East African cities, numbering anywhere up to 1,000 halls in Dar es Salaam alone.

The fortunes of Tanzania as a destination for filmmakers could also boost the current campaign to revive the Majestic. The last major feature film to be shot in the East African country was the adventure movie Hatari (dangeri) starring the legendary Hollywood actor John Wayne in 1962.

Last year, Broomfield was in Tanzania to film the documentary Albino United, a story about a football team in Tanzania composed of players with albinism.

For his next project, the English director will be based in Mwanza, in the northwest of the country for a film adaptation of the novel The Catastrophist.

He hopes that his African sojourn will serve as a motivation to other filmmakers from around the world to shoot in Tanzania and pass some of their skills to locals who can then make their own movies. The restoration of the building known as “Cinema Paradiso of Zanzibar” is therefore a crucial part of the overall plan to promote the film industry in Tanzania.