Talks between UCI and the landlord of the cinema building are still ongoing. Because it is still unclear whether the spontaneous termination due to construction defects is legally in order or not. Program cinema operator Christian Pfeil is waiting for clarity to finally prevail. Because he wants the German children’s media festival “Goldener Spatz” to be able to take place at a suitable location this year too.
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“We will help there. If only because we have a great interest in the city. We will help with our cinema, which is already there. And when it comes to finding alternative locations for this year, then we will too help. If we manage to find a solution with the UCI, then we’ll just go in there! ”
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Golden Sparrow in the House of Culture
Editor’s note: The opening of the Goldener Spatz is to take place this year in the House of Culture. This was announced by the head of the cultural office, Claudia Tittel, MDR KULTUR. At the time of the conversation with Christian Pfeil, this was not yet certain.
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Preserved the Gera cinema location
Clear words – from someone who was born in Gera. And still has a strong connection to the city, even if he has lived in Munich for years. Christian Pfeil is also a cinema enthusiast through and through. Seven years ago he reopened the long open Metropol-Kino in Gera. And – contrary to all prophecies of doom at the beginning – it is now quite successful. Now he wants to take the step from art house to blockbuster cinema. Simply because this program color is needed in Gera, as he emphasizes. He recently started negotiations with the landlord about this.
“Of course, a cinema with 2,000 seats for Gera is totally oversized. That’s nonsense. You could only sell that somehow in banker-bloom dreams in the nineties. Before the UCI was founded, Gera had 1,000 seats, and that was always enough . A good multiplex cinema with five or six screens would be ideal for Gera. But when it turns out to be seven and it works out cheaply, we’ll do it. ”
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A good multiplex cinema with five or six screens would be ideal for Gera. But when it turns out to be seven, we’ll do that.
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Even if 2020 was a pretty bad year for the cinema operator due to the pandemic – Pfeil wants to make the major investment. It could help that he is the only interested party who wants to continue showing films in the huge building. So he hopes for favorable rental conditions.
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“In principle, the landlord now has the choice between – ‘I have a ruin here’ or ‘I have a functioning business’. And you have to go to a reasonable level. Nobody can enforce their maximum demands. Of course I have now not the three million euros start-up costs under my pillow. But I’m relatively sure that there are enough interests in Gera to get things moving. ”
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Golden Sparrow as a prelude
For Pfeil it would be ideal to combine the re-opening with the start of the Goldener Spatzen, simply to generate more attention: “Look here, after long months of absence we’re back.” But for him the festival is not just a means to an end. It is simply extremely important for the soul of the city to hold this important cultural event in Gera. A complete shift – to Erfurt, for example – must absolutely be prevented.
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“That would be a political decision that would be incredibly fatal for everything. In the perception of the people who live here, East Thuringia is a neglected region anyway. Everything is concentrated in Erfurt. Just Weimar and Jena via special industries. But everything that comes east is cut off. And if you give them the only relevant festival, of which they only had a small part, if you take that away from them completely, that would be the completely wrong message. Then we can here turn off the light and have 60 percent AfD weak mates. ”
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Pfeil wants to take countermeasures – against a lifestyle of decline that has spread in Gera over the years. He suspects that the continued operation of the UCI will not be financially a gold mine – but that it will certainly pay off in the coming years. And if the negotiations with the landlord should break down in the end, that wouldn’t be the end either, he emphasizes. There is enough space in Gera. Then he looks for another place to show blockbuster cinema and to offer the Golden Sparrow the big screen.
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