The CENTRAL Cinema - The End of an Era
Documentary, HD (4K), color, stereo, presumably 60 min.
One curtain is being drawn – another one opens: cineastic nostalgia in the age of digital 3D
The final curtain is about to fall in the oldest cinema of Germany that is still run by the same family (now in third generation) on the same spot were the movie theater was opened 100 years ago. Being in the year of its 100st anniversary, the "CENTRAL Theater" in Hanau closes its doors on 12/12/2011, two days later the doors of a brand new and fully digital multiplex-cinema are about to open.
There are many stories and fates that have been influenced by the "CENTRAL" - not only within the owner's family. Marriage proposals were flickering over the silverscreen, movie shows led to mass riots in the late 60's and some even made their passion for film they found in the "CENTRAL" into a professional career in the movie industry.
Time-witnesses, including the famous Germany and Hanau-born actor Dominic Raacke, make the last decades of cinema tradition become alive, illustrated by their own experiences and memories of the "CENTRAL Theater".
But is not just a jewel of German cinema culture that is being lost by closing he "CENTRAL", it's also the celluloid material that takes the leave from Hanau. Film reels and rattling film projectors can't be found in the new "Kinopolis" cinema - the future of cinema is fully digital. Thus, the changing of the cinema culture in Hanau, a city which provided once more than ten movie theaters in the "Golden Age of Cinema", is representative of the nationwide – and even international – epochal turning point in the cinema and movie industry, entering into the digital age.
What is it that fascinates us about cinema? What's here to stay, what says good-bye? And which role does the audience play? Is it responsible for the death of the "good old times?...
The filmmaker Isabel Gathof spent her whole childhood and teens in Hanau – and of course, her passion for cinema was born in the "CENTRAL Theater", too. She returns after 20 years to her personal "cinema paradiso" for a cineastic homage to the movies.
Written & directed by Isabel Gathof
Cinematography: Axel Czarnecki and others
