The movie theatre era : Back then a date was not complete without taking a woman to 20th Century to watch The Bridges of Madison County

By Ojiambo Ainea | 7yrs ago | 3 min read

This week Kenya celebrated the best of Riverwood Awards which was a success and great achievement for the organisers, especially if we remember how far our art has come

When Riverwood started, there were other awards going on and many people thought Riverwood was for low-end movies. What they didn’t know was that film distribution can never happen without conniving dealers from River Road.

I support the initiative because Kenyans, like Mexicans, love TV series which sell more than movies. We just love film series. And so, producers prefer shooting series to making losses with movies. That’s the reason why even countries like Tanzania, which started movie production years after Kenya, are doing well and the industry pays way better than us.

Back in the day, we were encouraged to watch movies which explained why there were many movie theatres - like Nairobi Cinema, Kenya Cinema, 20th Century, Liberty Cinema, Embassy Cinema, ABC Cinema, Cameo Cinema, Casino Cinema, Shan Cinema and Globe Cinema. Most of them have since been converted into church halls, unfortunately.

The first movie I watched while at Khalsa Primary School - which was a Sikh school- had a Sikh as the main character and I remember it was something about hijackers. By the time I transferred to Buru 1 Primary School, by then mobile films had started screening on open fields, then called owanjo small, where now stands a shopping mall.

The mobile movies were referred to as walk-ins. The movies were shown from around 7pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so you can imagine how good one had to behave to get permission from parents. Missing a movie was the worst punishment ever, as most movies starred a commentator narrating huge chunks of the film in rapid Kiswahili.

It was so loud, you could follow the action from home. It was in walk-ins, also called watoto kaa chini that we came to know of stars like Terence Hill and Bud Spenser, Bruce Lee, Charles Bronson, John Wayne, Van Damme, Ti Lung, Sho Kosugi, Wang Yu, David Chiang and Jet Li.

These stars and the movie culture made us fall in love with cinema. A date was not complete without taking a woman to 20th Century to watch The Bridges of Madison County, Gladiator or Crimson Tide.

All the movie theatres, including Fox Drive-In on Thika Road and Belle Vue on Mombasa Road, made us think about films and becoming film stars.

I really miss the Cameo and ABC Cinema, which showed mostly Chinese martial art movies and estate film theatres s like Shan and Eastlands Cinemas, where you could watch six films for the price of one.

We should all try and make the movie industry flourish as it’s a big employer. Though the government is not doing much, not even ensuring TV stations have 40 per cent local content, as individuals, we can sensitive the younger generation to do better. Let us make them like local content by watching Kenyan movies.

The government should buy projectors and go around schools to screen local movies. The producers and actors also should upgrade and produce quality films which can be understood universally without tribal jokes.

Kenyans have deep stories like Lwanda Magere, Mau Mau, Kenyatta and Odinga. This is why wazungu produce movies like the First Grader - on Kimani Maruge - Eyes in the Sky and Constant Gardener.

Let’s make Riverwood as big as Nollywood, Bollywood and even Hollywood.