Cinema Flacăra

In Hunedoara, in the historical region of Transylvania, it is thought that the Cinema Flacăra (“Flame”) opened in 1978. Seating was in the stadium-style, with no circle, but raised seating at the rear of the auditorium.

The cinema struggled through the 1980’s and 1990’s. It closed in the 2000’s, but sources differ as to the precise year: one says it closed in 2009 “for periods of several months”, before closing for good in 2011, while the operators who re-opened it in 2018 say it had, by that time, been “closed for 14 years”.

Certainly, since 2012, representatives of the owners, the Autonomous Directorate of Film Distribution and Exploitation, had been announcing that the cinema would be modernised, but the investment was never forthcoming. Then, in 2018, the “closed and dilapidated” building was handed over to private investors.

It is not known when the Cinema Flacăra re-opened, but it played host to the premiere of “The Nun”, starring Taissa Farmiga, on Friday 7th September 2018, as that horror movie had been partly filmed at nearby Corvinilor Castle.

Sadly, the Cinema Flacăra closed permanently just over one year later, on 7th November 2019. In a Facebook message, the operators said they had already incurred huge costs with the power plant, and they were then unable to reconnect the gas supply for the central heating. Apparently, they needed a construction permit, but, in a rather bizarre twist, only the land, and not the building, appeared on official documents, so they were unable to proceed. They also said that filmgoers clearly preferred to visit the modern cinema in the neighbouring city of Deva [Cinema City: see separate Cinema Treasures entry] – even though ticket prices at the Cinema Flacăra were much lower. And this with an investment in excess of €100,000, including state-of-the-art equipment such as 3D projection and a Dolby 7.1 sound system.

So, when I visited, in May 2023, the building was, once again, “closed and dilapidated”.

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