CINEMA-PANAMA: Young People Save Cinemas from Extinction

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Silvio Hernandez

PANAMA CITY, Oct 6 1998 (IPS) - Going to the movies, once a regular occurrence for the youth of Panama before the days of television and video games, once again is a favorite form of entertainment.

Since 1995, when 1.7 million Panamanians attended the 25 movie theatres that existed at that time, the sector has grown noticeably. By 1997, cinemas were attracting an annual audience of 2.5 million spectators, 80 percent of them under 18 years old.

Due to the new ‘taste for movies’ shown by young people, the four companies that control the sector in Panama have invested 25 million dollars in the past three years to build 44 new cinemas with the latest sound and image systems, comforts and services for the public.

“Films for children under 14 are sometimes not as good as announced in their advertisements, but going to the movies with a group of friends and enjoying the comforts there compensates for everything else,” says Ana Raquel, an avid movie-goer.

However, “going to the movies is a luxury that I can barely allow myself twice a month,” laments the teenager, reflecting the situation of many other adolescents.

Tickets cost 3.50 dollars each, but the “other things” that go with the entertainment, like the candy bars – at least one dollar apiece – sodas, transport and other costs, end up totalling about 10 dollars, says Ana Raquel.

Juan, 20 years old, says that two or three years ago, he used to invite his girlfriends to the movies. Nowadays “I prefer to go alone, because now, I can’t even buy a candy bar at the movies”, he explains.

He also complains that the choice of films is limited.

Despite the criticism over the cost of tickets, Enrique Martin, director of the movie theater chain Alhambra, believes that the local market has the potential to grow to 120 theatres throughout the country. There are now 69, most of them in the capital and the nearby city of Chorrera.

According to Martin, the comeback is due to “the strong recovery of the cinema market worldwide, motivated mainly by the international trends that have impacted the video market”.

These changes began in 1995, when the cinema industry invested in advanced production technology and, at the local level, in sound and image as well as seating accommodation, “which brought more people into movie theatres”, says Martin.

A second development that contributed to the recovery of cinemas in Panama was the passing of a law protecting copyright and intellectual property, which curtailed the number of video rental stores that leased pirated copies of videos.

Up until then, there were 350 video stores, at which a new release copied onto a video cassette for home viewing could be rented for as little as 1.25 dollars. Once the law was passed, the number of video rental stores shrank to about 20 in the entire country.

Martin and Luis Sarlui, who owns a business in the sector, agree that in future, the expansion of movie theatres will take place in the interior, where there are still only a few.

Between 1970 and 1980, Colon – a city on the Caribbean coast with a population of 90,000 – closed down its 14 movies theatres. Similar closures happened in the central town of Santiago, Cinemas only reappeared two years ago in the city of 45,000 people.

“The market has more to offer,” says Martin. “The proof is that every time a theatre opens, there is enough demand to meet the supply, and if this continues it means that there’s still a margin that can be captured with new investments.”