The Minister of Culture asked IGAC to travel to the Monumental building, in Lisbon, to understand the state of the cinemas, closed in 2019, whose disaffection to cinematographic activity was requested by the owner of the space. divergence that exists about the effective state of the rooms, after this period of receiving responses, I asked the IGAC [Inspeção-Geral das Atividades Culturais] that very soon he will go to the space to check ‘in loco’ the state of those cinemas”, said on Thursday the minister Pedro Adão e Silva, in statements to Lusa and Público, in Lisbon, on the sidelines of the international meeting Book 2.0, organized by the Portuguese Association of Publishers and Booksellers (APEL). The Ministry of Culture received the request for disaffection in July, on the part of Merlin Properties, owner of the Monumental building, in Saldanha, which was the subject of works and now houses BPI’s premises .The minister said that it is “necessary to determine” the state of the rooms. “Because the recovery values are very different”, he said. On Wednesday, in response to questions from Lusa, the guardianship explained that, before making a decision regarding the disaffection request, Pedro Adão e Silva “understood to be his it should be clarified whether the possibility of reactivating film exhibitions in those theaters has been exhausted.” To this end, he addressed a letter to the entities with a seat at SECA (Specialized Section for Cinema and Audiovisual, of the National Council of Culture), “with a view to ascertaining if there are interested parties in the commercial exploitation of these cinemas”. The period for the entities to respond ended on Thursday. In addition, the guardianship “requested additional clarifications from the owner of the building”. The minister revealed that he already has “some answers” and that his office received the owners of the building on Thursday. date for responding to Merlin Properties’ request. “The disaffection request arrived very recently and is a sensitive situation. It is not a decision that can be taken lightly, hastily and quickly”, he said. The minister recalled that “any solution depends on the shared will of the owners and eventually of investors”. Pedro Adão e Silva stressed the need for the city “to have cinemas , cinemas with a door to the street, which guarantee the diversity of programming”. “That is my concern as a minister”, he said. he said, naming the example of Cinema Batalha, in Porto, which recently reopened, which “has been a successful case of having an alternative theater with an audience”. ” data-title=”Government wants to know what state the Monumental cinema rooms in Lisbon are in – SAPO Mag”> On Tuesday, in an opinion piece published in the newspaper Público, 21 professionals from the sector, representing, among others, the Association of Cinema and Audiovisual Producers, the Portuguese Association of Directors, the festivals DocLisboa, IndieLisboa and Curtas de Vila do Conde, the producers Midas Filmes, O Som e a Fúria and Alambique, and the exhibitor Cinemas Castello Lopes, appealed for the disassociation of the Monumental’s rooms is not authorized. the real estate situation in the capital and throughout the country, any space that is lost for cinema (and for culture) will be irreparable damage”. For the signatories, “it is about [o ministro] to rise to the occasion and finally do something so that cinema — and cinema lives in cinemas! — return to the place that was once yours”. the company that owns the Monumental building, Merlin Properties, told the Observador newspaper that it did not see “the feasibility of reopening” the four movie theaters, “between the strong investment that needs to be made in space and the difficult time that the sector is going through”. the same source, who assured that the works in the building did not affect the cinema space, finding a new exhibitor “is out of the question”. building, located in Saldanha.At the time, the cinema was operated by the exhibitor Medeia Filmes, from producer Paulo Branco, who then explained to Lusa that, despite not having formalized any contract, there was a guarantee of return of Medeia Filmes to that space. Questioned by the Lusa agency, the source of the communication from the Spanish company Merlin Properties, owner of the building, had previously revealed its intention to maintain the cinema operation after the remodeling. empty and currently unused”. The building now houses the offices of the BPI bank. In response to questions from the Lusa agency, Merlin Properties replied, on Wednesday, that it is “assessing the situation” of the Monumental cinema and that it has “no additional information to share” .The four rooms of the Monumental cinema existed in a commercial and office building that was inaugurated in 1993 in the same space where the old and iconic Cine-Teatro Monumental had operated before. outside shopping centres: Cinema Ideal, in Chiado, refurbished and reopened by producer Pedro Borges in 2014, Cinema Nimas, operated by Paulo Branco, and City Alvalade, operated by the exhibitor Cinema City. the cinema Londres, closed in 2013 due to the bankruptcy of the exhibition company Socorama and converted into a store, and the rooms of the Saldanha Residence – right in front of the Monumental -, closed in 2015, due to a shortage of spectators, disappear.
Government wants to know what state the Monumental cinema rooms in Lisbon are in
