Timisoara2023: What's next in the film business

The grand inauguration of Timisoara as the Capital of Culture attracted a gathering of over 60,000 people, with the Victor Brauner exhibition delighting more than 12,000 visitors. The temporary installation “Pepiniera – 1306 Plants for Timisoara,” featuring a modular metal structure that allowed the public to explore various uses of public space, saw an impressive attendance of over 100,000 visitors in Opera Square. Additionally, since its launch in October 2023, more than 45,000 exhibition tickets for Constantin Brancusi’s artistic endeavors have been reserved. Going beyond these accomplishments, this article highlights the significant figures within the cinema landscape.

The investment in the local cinemas

For the Timisoara 2023 Cultural Programme, the Municipality allocated approximately RON 75 million in 2022-2023 through the Timisoara Municipality Projects Centre and local public cultural institutions: the Banatul Timisoara Philharmonic, the Timisoara City Cultural Centre, the Csiky Gergely Hungarian Theatre, and the German Theatre. During this period, over 260 cultural projects and creative scholarships were funded as part of the Timisoara 2023 Cultural Programme, following the evaluation of over 900 funding applications.

Notably, the revitalisation of the former cinemas in Timisoara is particularly valuable, both for TM2023, but also for the communities where they are located. Alongside the execution of renovation works, a comprehensive strategy has been devised for their reintegration into the city’s cultural landscape.

Cinema Victoria in the Elisabetin district was the first of the city’s traditional cinemas to be rehabilitated by the Timisoara Municipality. It features a multifunctional hall with 192 seats, a retractable screen, a Barco 2k digital projector, and a Dolby Surround sound system. Its programme focuses on Romanian and European cinema, as well as productions from independent theatres. The stage also hosts performances, concerts, and various other community events.

The first year of operation at Cinema Victoria saw 38,000 spectators, with almost 20% of them being children, attending over 600 public and private events, including 50 screenings followed by audience meetings with directors and actors, 18 festivals, 8 theatre performances, as well as concerts, debates, and many more. Cinema Victoria was completed in April 2022 and is managed by the Timisoara Municipality Projects Centre.

Cinema Timis, located in the city centre, is the largest of Timisoara’s traditional cinemas. It reopened on October 13, 2023, after a complete renovation that transformed it into the most modern multifunctional space for movies, concerts, and cultural events in the heart of Timisoara. The renovated building includes the main hall for film screenings, concerts, and other events with a capacity of 529 seats, equipped with a fixed 2D/3D cinema screen, a Barco 4k digital projector, a Dolby Surround 7.1 cinema sound system, and an auxiliary sound system for events. In the basement, there is a multifunctional 160-sqm room that can accommodate up to 120 people, equipped with a retractable screen, a professional sound system, and modular furniture. Three smaller rooms featuring interactive screens and modular furniture can host courses, workshops, and other events with a limited number of participants. Cinema Timis also has an entrance hall and a generous foyer of over 100 square metres, as well as a street-facing cafe area and a bar area in the basement. Cinema Timis was completed in September 2023 and is managed by the Timisoara Municipality Projects Centre.

In the near future, the network of former cinemas in Timisoara being returned to the community will be completed by Cinema Dacia in the neighbourhood of the same name, Cinema Studio in the city centre, and Cinema Freidorf in the neighbourhood of the same name, with a completion horizon no later than the first half of 2024. Cinema Dacia, with a multifunctional hall of 380 seats, will have a strong educational dimension through film screenings for students, documentaries, educational concerts, opera screenings, museum tours, puppet theatre, and Ted Talks-style conferences, creative mornings. Cinema Studio will be an arthouse cinema featuring the latest independent films from the national offering, film festivals, masterclass events, workshops, and an open-air film garden on the roof of the building, with 80 additional seats. The Freidorf Cultural and Educational Centre will be a cultural and social centre with film screenings for the general public, as well as documentaries, performances, and workshops for circus, dance, music, and forum theatre. The Freidorf Cultural and Educational Centre will also offer day centre services for integrated assistance, including information and psychosocial counselling, family counselling, vocational counselling, occupational therapy, education and socialisation, support groups, and basic medical services.

More than cinema

As previously mentioned by Timisoara City Hall, a key emphasis of TM2023 was directed towards revitalising the culture of cinema. According to the Proposed Strategy for Reintegration into the Cultural Circuit of the City written by Ioana Dragomirescu, Timisoara is the only large city in Romania that has not had any functional art cinemas for more than 10 years. Former RADEF halls have either been sold or left unmaintained, with the last ones to close being Studio and Timis, in the city centre. The cultural infrastructure, whether public or private, is deficient in various fields, especially in the realm of music (with the exception of classical music), as alternative clubs and concert venues have closed one after another.

This is a paradoxical situation for a city that serves as an influential hub for the entire western region, a university centre with a high level of education and culture, and a population of 500,000 in the metropolitan area. The gap in the cinematic offering has been exploited in the last decade by the developers of the Iulius Town and Shopping City commercial centres, which now house multiplexes operated by Cinema City, totalling 25 screens and over 4,600 seats, placing the city in second place in the country, after the capital, in terms of cinema seats.

However, the alternative offerings for European and independent Romanian films are almost absent in Timisoara due to the lack of suitable screening spaces and an audience oriented towards this cultural segment. Now, these spaces are finally on the verge of re-emerging.

In total, there are seven halls with 1,502 seats, and an additional temporary screen and 80 rooftop seats at Studio will be available after the opening of these five locations. Clearly, the mission of continuously filling these spaces will not be easy, and Timisoara runs the risk of transitioning from nearly complete cultural infrastructure absence to an abundance of spaces, with these five halls and other cultural destinations currently under renovation.

The difficulty is further exacerbated by the fact that the cultural sector, in general, and the arts and entertainment sectors, such as theatre, music, and cinema, have been deeply affected by the pandemic, with revenue declines and audience numbers down 75% from pre-pandemic levels, with no realistic short-term recovery prospects.

On the other hand, the main goal is not only to provide spaces for the former cinemas but to enrich Timisoara’s cultural agenda in the year leading up to and during TM2023. This involves developing a new audience, not just mobilising the traditional audience for current cultural events. This new audience needs to be identified, motivated to discover the cultural offerings, and then retained around the open spaces.

The third essential contextual element is the involvement of local cultural operators in the halls’ offering. This includes non-governmental organisations that are active in the film sector through festivals or screening series, independent theatre groups, local music bands, organisations that promote concerts and festivals, foreign cultural institutes, operators with proposals for young audiences, people with disabilities, and those promoting education and cultural integration. Their involvement is at the centre of the local public authorities’ concept for these spaces and serves multiple objectives, such as promoting a diversity of content and artistic vision, showcasing and disseminating local cultural productions, actively involving the community, and mobilising the existing audience to populate these spaces while attracting a new audience.

This article was produced through funding from Energie! Creation Grants, awarded by the Municipality of Timișoara, through the Project Center / Centrul de Proiecte, within the Power Station component of the national cultural program “Timișoara – European Capital of Culture in 2023.” The material does not necessarily represent the position of the Project Center of the Municipality of Timișoara, and it is not responsible for its content or how it may be used. The article is part of a series which got published in Business Review’s November 2023 issue.

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