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Guyana’s last cinema gets innovative to stay in business
– rents out to churches, offers big-screen advertising to businesses
By Michael Jordan
After over five decades in existence, Guyana’s only remaining cinema is battling to stay in business, and its owner, Desmond Woon, has come up with some novel ways to do just that.
Mr. Woon revealed that the Astor Cinema will be renting out its premises to churches on Sundays. He will also be airing business advertisements on the cinema’s big screen —something many cinemas did in the past.
Last cinema standing: The Astor still attracts some die-hard fans
Equipment is being imported to air these advertisements, and Mr. Woon is optimistic that the project will get off the ground soon.
And to compete with the DVD craze, Astor’s management is striving to acquire new movie releases from overseas at an earlier date.
“I am also hoping that the copyright laws come into effect soon (to quell piracy), but, in the meantime, we are trying to keep the cinema industry alive,” Mr. Woon told Kaieteur News yesterday.
Located at Church and Waterloo Streets, the Astor Cinema has been open since 1940. Mr. Woon took over its management in 1974.
At one time there were at least 52 cinemas in existence in Guyana, and the Astor, Strand, Plaza and Metropole were household names, attracting sell-out crowds whenever a new movie opened.
International artistes such as gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, Ben E. King, Eddy Grant, Ray Charles, Chuck Jackson, Percy Sledge, Chubby Checker, Doris Troy and a host of others even performed at some cinemas.
Metropole went up in flames a few years ago; the Globe is literally a shell of its former self; and the Strand — the first local cinema to show the devil-possession movie ‘The Exorcist’ — has been converted to a church.
All the other cinemas have long closed their doors.
The Astor itself now only attracts a few faithful patrons, and the manager admits that he is operating at a loss.
While some patrons say that cinemas have failed to keep up with the times, Mr. Woon blames the flood of bootleg DVD movies for helping to kill the industry.
For example, the Astor is preparing to show the latest James Bond blockbuster, ‘Quantum of Solace.’
But pirated DVDs of the same movie have already aired numerous times on some local television stations.
Mr. Woon says that he intends to inform the distributors of the movie of the infringement.
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