Soon, Romania will also benefit from the new technology that allows Christian Bale to plunge into the audience, and fans to shake Bono’s hand at a U2 concert. At the end of last year, the first 3D film featured on Romanian screens, ”Journey to the Center of the Earth” became the most profitable movie of all time on the Romanian market, collecting almost 2 million RON at the box office, although critics on the international market deemed the movie as mediocre.

So, critics concluded, it was technology that made the difference, not the love story on the most famous boat in history. Cinema operators, inspired by the unexpected success of the start of the digital revolution in Romania, now compete in the field of technology. ”Our experience tells us that in Central and Eastern Europe, whenever a significant infrastructure was created, the number of annual visits per capita approached those in Western Europe, and we think the same will happen on the Romanian market,” says Corina Gonteanu, marketing manager of Cinema City, a part of Cinema City International, the largest multiplex network in Central and Eastern Europe.

According to company data, Romania ranks last in Europe in terms of the average number of cinema visits per capita, with 0.2 visits a year. That compares with 0.3 visits in Bulgaria, 1.5 in Hungary, 0.9 in the Czech Republic, whilst Ireland is at the top of the ranking, with 4.5 visits. ”Romania could easily reach 0.7-1 if the infrastructure is developed, and the number of tickets could rise five-fold. In Warsaw, for instance, where there are 8-9 multiplexes, the ratio of visits exceeds 3,” says Moshe Greidinger, CEO of Cinema City International. In this context, Cinema City will open the first IMAX (Image MAXimum) within the AFIPalace Cotroceni mall in October.

The IMAX will be part of a 21-screen, 4,300-seat megaplex. IMAX, considered to be the largest cinema in the world, actually amounts to a three-dimensional experience lived on a large scale. The screen, which is the size of an eightfloor building (18 metres high and 24 metres wide) is curbed in order to fill the peripheral vision of everyone in the audience. ”The investment in the IMAX system is worth around 1,8 million euros,” says Greidinger. The IMAX in Bucharest, a 400-seat cinema, will feature both 40-50 minute-long documentaries, and Hollywood productions.

Traducere de Loredana Fratila-Cristescu si Daniela Stoican