Locals in the Dalmatian capital are not happy with transformation plans of their cinemas.
The former “Marjan” cinema on Prokurative is now a venue for drinking expensive wines, “Tesla” is literally full of frogs, “Central”, which is currently the largest cinema in the city centre, will soon be turned into a nightclub, while “Karaman” could soon become a restaurant, reports Slobodna Dalmacija on November 23, 2015.
The centre of Split has been “cleansed” of most of public facilities, with tourist catering and shopping facilities taking place of well-known venues where people could spend some quality time with a good book, movie or just drinking coffee. Commercialization is seriously threatening Split with a so-called “Dubrovnik Syndrome”.
People who have dedicated their professional life to film art described what they thought about the possible closure of the last two cinemas in the city centre. “I still have not really gotten over the closure of ‘Marjan’ and ‘Tesla’ cinemas, and now ‘Central’ will become history as well. I am very sad to think that ‘Central’ will soon have its ‘last picture show’. It was the cinema of my childhood and youth. I have remained faithful to it all these years and I kept coming even though two multiplexes have been opened in the meanwhile. However, the closure of ‘Central’ has a broader context than just one movie fan. It is just another, for me certainly the most painful, nail in the coffin of the city centre which, in a cultural and social sense, dies a bit every day. It is kept alive only by tourists during the tourist season”, Marko Njegić, film critic of Slobodna Dalmacija daily, said.
Branko Karabatić, director of Split Film Festival, shares his opinion. “This is really sad news. It is impossible to imagine the opening of Split Film Festival without ‘Central’. Who knows what will happen there. Our program has every year managed to attract a respectable number of visitors to the city cinemas, but that space is narrowing down, since the multiplexes are irresistible. We should not blame the cinema exhibitors, they simply cannot compete with shopping malls, even when they have screenings for just a few viewers. If there is a need for city independent cinemas to exist, and there certainly is, then it can be solved only by the city and state institutions, but now they have ‘more important issues’ in their focus”, Karabatić said.
