Cinema Modern

In Hunedoara, in the historical region of Transylvania, the Cinema Modern opened in 1984. There were two screens, the main one with 350 seats and 35mm projection and a smaller auditorium (with an estimated 50 seats) using video projection.

For presumably political reasons that are unclear, the cinema went into decline as a direct result of the December 1989 Romanian Revolution and closed soon afterwards. It became a warehouse for several years, but was then abandoned, around 2010, and has suffered very badly from vandalism. It is unfenced, and its appearance, and the filth collecting in and around it, is a major concern for local residents.

Indeed, Romania Film, the cinema’s administrator, has been fined several times by the Hunedoara Local Police because it has not taken measures to make the building safe. One of these fines, in the amount of 30,000 lei (around £5,200), handed down on 25th October 2018, was contested in court by representatives of Romania Film who argued that the task of taking care of the building should fall to the municipality. However, the Hunedoara Court ruled in favour of the Local Police and ordered the fine to be paid.

Despite this pressure, in recent years only the area around the building has been cleaned by city contractors, while the building itself has remained in its earlier situation: full of rubbish and droppings; walls about to collapse; a sleeping place for the homeless and a generally dangerous space (although the entrances to the auditorium have been bricked up).

Mindful of this deplorable situation, the municipality is seeking to take steps to take over the building, and demolish it. Unfortunately, this aspiration has been mired in red tape and, when I visited, in May 2023, the building was still standing, unfenced, and in a terrible state.

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