Curtains Down On Morocco's Ramshackle Cinemas

Casablanca, Morocco, Feb 3 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 3rd Feb, 2022 ) :They won't be playing it again at this Casablanca cinema. Rabi Derraj gazed despondently at the ramshackle 1940s movie house, its doors blocked by discarded mannequins from the nearby market.

"There's no hope any more. This cinema is dead," said its longtime security guard.

Al-Malaki once seated more than 1,000 moviegoers, but like theatres across Morocco, it lies closed and derelict.

Enthusiasts are calling for better protection for the buildings, architectural treasures that bear witness to the North African kingdom's past.

Al-Malaki, "the Royal" in Arabic, was commissioned by King Mohammed V in the 1940s as a grandiose riposte to cinemas reserved for citizens of colonial power France.

The 1942 Hollywood classic "Casablanca", featuring piano-player Sam, is set in the city.

But decades later the cinema building has become a dumping ground for goods from the surrounding market in the working-class Derb Sultan neighbourhood.

"It's tragic. You can't measure the historical importance of this cinema," said Derraj, who has spent almost half of his 42 years as its guard.

In front of the ticket office, a tv almost blocks a list of prices, one of the few indications of the building's function until it closed in 2016.

Like audiences in other countries around the world where historic theatres have also shuttered, Moroccans have turned to streaming services at home, a trend amplified by the coronavirus pandemic.

A hundred or so theatres face a similar fate to Al-Malaki's -- crumbling for years until they are finally demolished.

Morocco's first cinemas were built by the French, who had established a protectorate over the country in 1912.

But it was in the 1940s that theatres were built for Moroccans themselves, setting up a golden age of the silver screen which lasted into the early 1990s.

"The Moroccans had a love affair with cinema," said Francois Beaurain, a French photographer who has produced a book on the subject.

"But television, VHS tapes and today streaming have killed that love," he continued.