An abandoned cinema lies in waiting for an audience that never came. A movie-worthy mirage, you’d be easily forgiven for not trusting your eyes upon stumbling such a surreal sight in the heat of the dusty Egyptian desert.
In the Egyptian desert, in the Sinai Peninsula, you can see this from Google Images.
It is called the ‘The End of World Cinema’. The cinema consists of 150 worn-out seats, broken screen foundations and a ruined building which housed the projector and generator.
The project was the idea of a Frenchman in the late 1990s who bought the cinema parts from a theater in Cairo. It suffered a power cut on what was supposed to be its premiere night.
No one know why the power was cut, but authorities in the area weren’t thrilled by the idea of a movie theater in the middle of the desert and many people think they were the ones responsible for the generator’s malfunction.
One photographer that took photographs there stated “On a sunny day at the very beginning of this millennium, a crazy Frenchman found himself in the desert of Sinai.
After some puffs of a magic smoke he wondered – how come there are no cinemas in the middle of the desert? He flew back to Paris and arranged some money. After that he went to Cairo to buy original seats and projection equipment from an old cinema theater. Then came back to Sinai, arranged a generator for electricity, and a monstrous tractor to pull up the screen that was like a gigantic sail. And now more or less everything was ready for the premier.”
Unfortunately, the local officials were not pleased with this outdoor theater. It was built without permission on their land. So, unfortunately on the premier night, an accident happened to the generator which ruined the opening. No film was screened that night, or any other night, ever. The Frenchman’s crazy desert movie dreams fell flat, and the cinema has been left there ever since, like a monument of the Pharaohs from another dimension. And now, it sits, vacant. And unfortunately, a movie has never been played there. What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.