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Dubai: Right in the heart of downtown Dubai is the Plaza, one of the oldest cinema houses with a huge seating capacity of more than 1,600.
"People can easily access us. We are next to a bus station and those living across in Deira can take the abra to come here," said K. Basheer, manager of the cinema hall.
Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan filled up the seats recently with his film Om Shanti Om. Jodhaa Akbar, the controversial movie about the love affair between a Mughal emperor and his Hindu wife, is also doing well at the box office here.
Plaza, which opened its doors in 1972, also claims to be the first to provide online ticket booking. Balcony tickets cost Dh25 and Stall, Dh20. "Everyone enjoys Bollywood movies," said Basheer. "Indians, Pakistanis, Arabs. We get a lot of Arab customers." Plaza is one of the last independent cinemas in the UAE.
Just off the main crossroad between Al Karama and Bur Dubai was another cinema house, the Strand. Long-time residents living around the area remember it with fond memories, saying that going to the movies at this theatre used to be a 'weekly ritual'. "We used to gather around in the lobby during the interval and discuss which song we liked best," said an Indian expatriate, who has made Dubai his home for the last 20 years. The ticket price then was Dh10.
One day, without warning, the marquee lights went out and people were told the cinema house was being demolished.
Dubai Cinema, said to be one of the oldest theatres in the emirate, was also razed down a couple of years ago. Old timers remember it standing opposite the Murraqqabat Police Station.
Al Nasr Cinema, which drew crowds not only for Hindi movies but Malayalam language movies also, quietly shut its doors.
Sources said Al Nasr Club, which owns the land on which the cinema stands, plans to expand the Club. The cinema house has been shut for more than a year now.
The Plaza manager said piracy has hit the cinemas hard. Even before the prints of a major Bollywood hit arrive in Dubai, cheap DVDs are available in areas such as Karama, where men on bicycles display their collection openly.
The DVDs sell for as cheap as Dh10 and some have at least three movies on a single DVD. "There is a copyright law here," said Basheer. "The government is doing all it can but the pirated copies are still being sold."
But piracy is not the main reason for the death knell of the independent cinema houses in Dubai.
CineStar opened its massive cineplexes in the UAE in 1999. Today it has 14 screens in the Mall of the Emirates alone.
"See the movies the way they were meant to be seen. Bigger, better, first, only on the big screen. There's nothing like it," said Cameron Mitchell, general manager of CineStar in a message on the website.
To attract people to the cinemas it has got things like reclining luxury chairs in the Gold Class, to people serving you snacks. On its website there are sneak previews, competitions which get you free ticket and latest news from Hollywood.
A year later, the Grand Cineplex opened its doors. It is the biggest in the region with 160 screens across the UAE. Another one plans to open at the Festival City in May.
"The population is growing rapidly," said a spokesperson of Gulf Films, distributors of movies. "We are now getting movies the same day they are released in the United States," she said.
But an industry insider said the big turnout at the turnstiles is only during the weekends. "Most of these places make money on the snacks, not the ticket money," he said.
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