<h1>The Exhibition Program of Prague Cinemas Will Bring You Closer to the Demise of Cinemas</h1>

Kino Mat at Karlovo náměstí

Prague - The not-so-distant history of Prague's cinemas is presented to those interested in Czech cinematography and its regulars at the Samsa bookstore and bar near Wenceslas Square in Prague. Photographer Martin Plitz is exhibiting photographs of currently used buildings as well as ruins and gaps that have emerged on sites where cinemas once stood just a few years ago. The author, who took pictures of the exteriors of forty buildings that once housed cinemas in the metropolis in the mid-90s, ironically titled his photo series The Program of Prague Cinemas.
    "The exhibition was created during a time that was probably the worst for Czech cinemas. Old cinemas were disappearing for various reasons, and people could not yet go to the current multiplexes," Plitz told ČTK. The author took the series of photos as a term project for the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava, where he was studying at the time. After all, he had been "around film since childhood," so he was well acquainted with the cinemas he photographed.
    In Plitz's photographs, he depicted the state of Prague's cinemas from the center to the outskirts. The forty former cinemas shown in the photographs generally no longer resemble their original purpose; many serve as fitness centers, billiard halls, carpet stores, banks, marketplaces, or Chinese restaurants. Several former cinemas have even been demolished.
    "Perhaps the only exception is the former cinema Moskva, from which there is now the Ládví multiplex," Plitz noted. According to him, the golden age of Prague cinemas was the 1960s when people in the metropolis could visit a total of 150 different cinemas. However, apart from multiplexes, they can now choose from just a handful of cinemas.
    Aside from some small cinemas on the outskirts, Plitz now most regrets the loss of halls such as the beautiful Art Nouveau space of the Vinohrady cinema Flora, now used as offices for the General Health Insurance Company, or the Libeň cinema Dukla, which was devastated by a flood due to the "care" of the communist administration, located in the former Palace of the World, known from the stories of Bohumil Hrabal.
    Despite the fact that today's times do not favor cinemas, according to Plitz, new screening spaces occasionally arise. "An example is the Evald cinema in the building where the Central Film Lending Library was located, or the Mat cinema in the private house of editor Mr. Mattlach, which he established for his own pleasure," Plitz added.
    The exhibition was already viewed by visitors of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the mid-90s and later by visitors of the Film School in Uherské Hradiště, but this is a premiere in the metropolis. The photographs of former Prague cinemas will be installed in the Samsa bookstore until February 16.