Cinema Pameer
**Seen for the 2020 Atlanta Film Festival.
If “Cinema Pameer” does nothing else, it shows that the experience of operating a movie theatre is universal. That isn’t to say I have ever had to worry about IEDs going off just outside of the theatre, but I’ve had plenty of times where dealing with customers during emergencies have been tricky. I will say, I might start, in an attempt to try and make sure customers are throwing their trash away after their show, referring to them as “dear countrymen.” If nothing else, it’ll get some wonderfully odd looks.
Martin von Krogh’s documentary about the daily operations of a movie theatre in Kabul, Afghanistan, is as pure a representation of love of movies as we’ve gotten in a long time. It’s also a very matter-of-fact “fly on the wall” look at working at a movie theatre I have a feeling anyone, in any country, will relate to. Customers are the same, the choices that have to be made in how to run it from a customer service perspective are the same. All one has to do is sub out the Afghan Film Office and Censors with a corporate office and it’s like looking at a mirror, in a lot of ways. I really loved watching what I’ve done for the better part of 18 years shown onscreen, even if the subjects in this film have a trickier balancing act that I’ve ever had.
Of course, the similarities in the situations of the Pameer’s re-opening after the Taliban fell in 2001 and American theatres re-opening in the past month after COVID-19 shut them down for about five months only go so far, but in hearing them talk about what it was like for them to open theatres back up, and how they viewed it culturally, I couldn’t help but feel a kinship with these guys. That was a big part of why this film connected with me the way it did- seeing them thread up the projectors, discuss issues in the auditorium, and how to handle them, and what cinema could mean for people deprived of it; it all hit home for me. Trying to reason with customers who could not be reasoned with, and even finding a way to connect with those whom see things differently with you- this is such a beautiful and surprising movie about the experiences around cinema, not even really associated with the films themselves, it nonetheless feels like a movie that everyone can enjoy, even if you aren’t geeking out about the movies. This is, quite frankly, one of the most personal films I’ve ever seen, and my life could not be further from the reality being shown. That’s what the best documentaries can give us.
