You're reading: City Life: Zhovten, Kyiv’s oldest movie theater, reopens one year after fire

When Vitaliy Prudyus found out that Zhovten, the oldest cinema in Kyiv, was set on fire, he hurried to the scene. Watching the building in flames, he says he felt that all his memories were also burning away.

“That day Zhovten, as I remember it, disappeared. Apparently, after the reopening it would be a new cinema, and the new history,” Prudyus told the Kyiv Post.

Almost a year after it was ruined by arson, Zhovten reopens on Oct. 18 on 26 Kostiantynivska St. in Kyiv’s Podil neighborhood.

The movie theater located in Kyiv’s Podil area caught on fire on Oct. 29, 2014, when a smoke grenade was activated in the back rows during the screening of the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender-themed film. The blaze spread quickly. No one was injured, but the inside of the building were destroyed by fire.

Two men received two and three years of a suspended sentence for hooliganism. The court is yet to decide if they are guilty of arson, too.

The cinema is the oldest movie theater in Kyiv, opened in 1930s. The building is owned by the city and rented by Kinoman, a private movie-distribution company.

After the ribbon is cut at the opening ceremony at 3 p.m. on Oct.18, Zhovten will screen several movies. Entrance will be free.

One of the first films to be shown will be “Youth,” a drama by the Oscar-winning Italian director Paolo Sorrentino. After that, the theater will operate normally, screening similar movies to other theaters, as well as the festival and art house films that Zhovten was known for.

To reconstruct the historic cinema, Kyiv authorities have allocated Hr 53 million ($2.4 million), according to Zhytloinvestbud, the utility company under the construction department of the city administration.

This money covered only the renovation of the building. To replace the destroyed equipment, Kinoman raised money by selling coupons that could be exchanged for the movie tickets, as well as the so-called “sponsor’s seats” for Hr 3,000 to Hr 12,500 per one. Those who paid for the seats will have an opportunity to take them at the opening screening on Oct. 18.

About Hr 300,000 were raised in total, which was 20 times less than the goal. Kinoman loaned the rest of the money.

Just a few days before the opening, Zhovten director Liudmyla Gordeladze told the Kyiv Post that the repair works were still being completed.

“We are all working in a big rush,” she said.

Oleksandr Spasybko, head of the construction department of the Kyiv City State Administration, reported earlier this month that about 300 people were working day and night in Zhovten to get the theater ready in time for the opening.

Serhiy Shchelkunov, who coordinated Save Zhovten volunteer movement, thinks that the city administration rushed to open the cinema on Oct. 18, a week ahead of local elections The Kyiv administration in an email to the Kyiv Post denied the allegations. “The goal of the building’s reconstruction is to resume functions of the cinema as soon as possible – for the comfortable visiting of it by the Kyiv’s residents and guests,” the statement said.

Shchelkunov added that, based on what he saw during his last tour through Zhovten on Oct. 8, he could confirm that the cinema is almost ready to reopen.

Prudyus, who said he couldn’t believe that Zhovten would be restored quickly, was pleasantly surprised to hear the news. In his words, he wanted the cinema to be back in service not because of the cheap tickets or the extraordinary atmosphere it had, but for its repertoire.

“I think we all understood during this year that for the existence of such a cinema we are ready to pay more, not less, as the city really missed it,” he said. “It’s good that it returns.”

Kyiv Post staff writer Alyona Zhuk can be reached at [email protected]