Smaller cinemas and more films

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34146, 6 May 1976, Page 16

Smaller cinemas and more films

Films are not the extensively popular form of entertainment they were a few decades ago. Television has captured the attention of people who want to be entertained cheaply and without having to go to much trouble. But films have a strong market—or markets—and more exhibitors are appreciating that changed audiences require physically different theatres and changed manners of presenting films. Most of the cinemas that survived the introduction of television in Christchurch are large. Such theatres are still needed to meet the demands of some films and their audiences. Christchurch is not likely to be without a sufficient number of these large theatres. But the highly popular money-making films which can fill these theatres are only a small part of the output of the world’s film-makers. Overseas, film exhibitors have met the challenge of television not just by closing large theatres but also by building new. smaller theatres to cater to new audiences. This trend is at last becoming evident in Christchurch. Plans are afoot to create smaller, more intimate theatres in both a central city and suburban theatre. These smaller theatres should be less costly to run and should proride more congenial surroundings for smaller audiences. With them, exhibitors will be better placed to show films at different times, more frequently, to smaller audiences. Many worth-while films have a limited or specialised audience and the opportunities to show these in New Zealand are still restricted

The exhibitors will need the support and interest of the Cinematograph Films Licensing Authority and the local authorities, which have a say in when and where films are shown to the public; and the film distributors may also have to change their attitudes to accommodate the wishes of the new audiences to which these new. smaller theatres will cater. The health of the industry in New Zealand is important to a wider group than those who have an economic stake in it. The more varied the films shown in New Zealand the less New Zealand should suffer from the ill-effects of its continuing isolation from the world’s main centres of cultural activity.

At present New Zealanders are assured of an opportunity to see most major films which have already proved their popularity elsewhere. But many films never reach New Zealand screens, not because of censorship, but because the country does not have the cinemas where they can be profitably shown. This obstruction to showing a greater variety of films appears to be disappearing and the industry may soon be able to reach new audiences with films that It could not now contemplate introducing to the big cinemas.