KABUL: Through the decades, downtown Kabul’s Ariana Cinema had weathered revolution and war, emerging battered and bruised but still standing to entertain Afghans with Bollywood movies and American action flicks. Now, it is no more.
On Dec. 16, demolition crews began to tear down the historic cinema, which first opened its doors to moviegoers in the early 1960s. A week later, there was nothing left.
“It’s not just a building made of bricks and cement that is being destroyed, but the Afghan cinema lovers who resisted and continued their art despite the hardships and severe security problems,” Afghan film director and actor Amir Shah Talash told The Associated Press. “Unfortunately, all the signs of historical Afghanistan are being destroyed.”
Hearing about the Ariana Cinema’s destruction was “very painful and sad news for me,” said Talash, who has been active in Afghanistan’s film industry since 2004 but has been living in France since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.
Taliban bans most forms of art and entertainment
Afghanistan’s Taliban government, which seized power in 2021 in the wake of the chaotic withdrawal of US and NATO troops, has imposed a harsh interpretation of Islamic law which has introduced a raft of restrictions, including bans on most forms of entertainment such as films and music.
Shortly after taking over, the new government ordered all cinemas to stop operating. On May 13 this year, it announced the dissolution of the Afghan Film Administration. The Ariana, built on municipal land by a busy traffic roundabout was shuttered and remained in limbo.
But Kabul authorities later decided the cinema, with its stylish marquee and plush red seats, had to make way for a new shopping complex.
“Cinemas themselves are a kind of commercial activity, and that area was a completely commercial area and had the potential for a good market there,” Kabul Municipality spokesman Niamatullah Barakzai said.
The municipality aims to develop the land it owns “to generate good income from its resources and bring positive changes in the city,” he added.
The Ariana Cinema opens in the liberalizing 1960s
The Ariana opened in 1963, its sleek architecture mirroring the modernizing spirit the then-ruling monarchy was trying to bring to the deeply traditional nation.
But Afghanistan was soon plunged into conflict. The Soviets invaded in 1979, and by the late 1980s war raged across the country, as Soviet-backed President Najibullah’s government fought an American-backed coalition of warlords and Islamic militants. He was toppled in 1992, but a bloody civil war ensued.
The Ariana suffered heavy damage and lay in ruins for years. In 1996, the Taliban took over Kabul, and whatever cinemas in the city had survived were shuttered.
A new — but temporary — lease of life
The Ariana was given a new lease of life after the Taliban’s 2001 ouster by the US-led invasion, with the French government helping to rebuild it in 2004.
Indian films were particularly popular, as were action movies, while the Ariana also began playing Afghan movies resulting from a revival of the domestic film industry.
For Talash, the film director and actor, it was his childhood visits to the Ariana with his brothers that sparked his interest in movies.
“It was from this cinema that I fell in love with film and turned to this art form,” he said. Eventually, one of his own films was screened in the Ariana, “which is one of the unforgettable memories for me.”
The cinema was a cultural gathering place for Kabul residents who would go there to “relieve their sorrows and problems and to calm their minds and hearts,” Talash said. “But now, a very important part of Kabul has been taken away. In this new era, we are regressing, which is very sad.”
But art, he said, doesn’t just reside in buildings. There is still hope.
“The future looks difficult, but it is not completely dark,” Talash said. “Buildings may collapse, but art lives on in the minds and hearts of people.”
In neighboring Pakistan, authorities imposed heavy taxes on Indian films to curb imports and then banned them outright after the 1965 war between India and Pakistan over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. Bollywood fans from Pakistan would travel to Kabul instead to watch the popular movies.
Among them was Sohaib Romi, a Pakistani film enthusiast and art lover, who recalled watching the Indian film “Samjhauta,” or “Compromise,” at the Ariana in 1974 with his uncle.
For him, the loss is personal. “My memories are buried in the rubble of the Ariana Cinema,” he said.