Traveling cinema

Newspaper advertisement for the farewell performance of the traveling cinema "The Bioskop" by Louis Geni, 1903

Modern traveling cinema with inflatable screen , 2008

A traveling cinema is a cinema that shows films at different locations. The term can be used both for the facility itself and for the organization behind it. Colloquially, a speed trap is also called a traveling cinema.

history

The first public film screenings at folk festivals and fairs were traveling cinemas. They could be seen in many cities as early as 1896, before fixed cinemas appeared everywhere in the cities from 1906–1908. However, these could only be operated economically in places with a larger population. A traveling cinema functioned like a circus - some actually emerged from circus companies. A traveling cinema stayed in one place for a few days - depending on the number of visitors - to show the films they had brought with them, which were mostly still unknown on site. Either a separate tent or existing facilities such as festival halls, hotel halls or the like served as the projection room. The largest traveling cinema tents held over 1000 visitors.

Towards the end of the 1910s (after the introduction of the distribution system for films), traveling cinemas in the cities were replaced relatively abruptly by fixed cinemas - many traveling cinemas also settled down themselves. From around 1914, with the beginning of the First World War , traveling cinemas hardly played a role in the distribution of films in the cities. To supply rural areas, however, they continued to exist until the 1960s.

In National Socialist Germany, mobile film screenings were discovered as a propaganda instrument for the province, which is difficult to reach with conventional propaganda means (rallies, newspapers, radio). Under the leadership of the NSDAP, 22,357 local film stations across the country were responsible for supplying the rural population with the characteristic mixture of propaganda and entertainment films with the help of the "audio cart" equipped with the latest technology. The demonstrations mostly took place in the halls of inns or in community rooms. After 1945, some projectionists continued their work as sole proprietorships with the approval of the Allied military governments, sometimes with the old film wagons, only the swastika on them was then replaced by an American star. The importance of traveling cinemas in this form ended with the onset of motorisation and the associated mobility of cinema-goers.

In recent years, however, more and more companies and initiatives have emerged which organize open-air film screenings as "traveling cinema" or "mobile cinema" and always remind of the early days of cinema, sometimes even in the form of silent film screenings with live music. Often run by film clubs or non-profit cultural associations such as the Ratzeburg Film Club or the Multicultural Center Templin , most of these companies are based in structurally weak, rural areas. But the old traveling cinema principle is also being revived in large cities, where some districts have been hit hard by the death of the cinema in recent decades. Examples of this are the Berlin initiatives Kino für Moabit and Stadtlichter , which, like the Hamburg project Flexibles Flimmern and the Mobiles Kino eV association , which has been active in the Nuremberg metropolitan region for three decades , also offer mobility for the development of new ideas such as the presentation of films use special and thematically appropriate locations.

Traveling cinemas in India

From the country's independence in 1947 to the spread of DVD , traveling cinemas in India were the only entertainment option for the rural population of great cultural significance. The traveling cinemas originally moved across the country in carts and ox carts, later in trucks. The films were shown in mobile tents, the tambu talkies . The viewers were able to influence the screening of the film by means of joint voting, so that popular scenes were repeated if interested, or the current film was interrupted if there was widespread disinterest and another film role was inserted instead. The film culture of the Indian traveling cinemas was documented photographically by the Indian Foundation of the Arts . A traveling cinema is also the main motif of the Indian feature film Road, Movie from 2009.

See also

• Outdoor cinema
• Inflatable screen

Movies

• Road, Movie , Indian feature film by Dev Benegal, 2009
• Out and about with the Indian traveling cinemas , RBB documentation, 2012

Web links

• A brief history of the cinema in Klagenfurt
• The Jahmarktskino and its predecessors: Chapter 3 from schaubuden.de
• Traveling cinemas in East Frisia
• The history of open-air cinema ( Memento from May 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
• Website of the Bergisches Wanderkinos Movie in Motion

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bernd Kleinhans: One people, one empire, one cinema . PapyRossa Verlag, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-89438-262-7 , The cinema comes to the country: The propaganda of the Gaufilmstellen, p. 163-171 .
2. ↑ Hamburg Film Museum. Collections. Wonderful traveling cinema. Retrieved November 22, 2017 . 
3. ↑ Traveling cinema. Retrieved November 22, 2017 . 
4. ^ Ratzeburg Film Club. Retrieved November 22, 2017 . 
5. ↑ Multicultural Center Templin Mobile Cinema. Retrieved November 22, 2017 . 
6. ^ Moabit film culture. We make cinema where there is none. Retrieved November 22, 2017 . 
7. ↑ City lights. Retrieved November 22, 2017 . 
8. ↑ Flexible flicker. Retrieved November 22, 2017 . 
9. ↑ Mobiles Kino eV - About us. Retrieved January 4, 2019 . 
10. ^ Traveling cinemas in India: Gods in the luggage , Spiegel-Online, May 30, 2010