France has a park of 2.000 cinemas unique in the world by its density, and in 2020, 22 cinemas opened their doors, despite the months of the curtain down.
This year, despite the lack of perspective after more than 100 days of cinemas being closed, renovation or construction projects are continuing everywhere, from Lavandou (Var) to the Opéra district in Paris via Givors ( Rhône).
In Romorantin, there is excitement on the Ciné Sologne site: a ballet of forklifts, assembly of partitions ... the future complex must be ready by the end of March. He will take over from the Palace, the historic hall in the city center.
With the cultural center or the escape game which opened in the city center, the cinema, classified art house and which programs blockbusters as more specialized films, is one of the centers of animation of this sub-prefecture of 17.000 inhabitants , on the peaceful banks of the Sauldre.
One hour by car from Tours, Bourges or Orleans, the city has experienced "three tsunamis" since the 2000s, recalls Mayor Jeanny Lorgeoux: the closure of the Matra car factory, which employed 2.200 people, a great flood with more than 500 evacuations, and now the Covid ...
In this context, "the cinema is a fantastic cultural asset" necessary "for the city to continue," adds the city councilor, who has been in charge since 1985 and who has done everything to promote the installation of the new complex.
"In the small sub-prefectures, the cinema is the perfect intergenerational link", adds the elected official, and it is also there that what remains of the working class intersect, in this former industrial land, and the better-off, who live off the "castle economy" and hunting, a specialty of the area.
For the city, it is also "an economic and attractiveness lever. If we did without it, it would be catastrophic".
"Start again from the beggining"
However, the Palace, which attracted 70.000 spectators each year, "was no longer really up to current comfort standards", recognizes the owner of the place, Francis Fourneau.
The old cinema, built in the 1970s and still intact with its pastel yellow walls, is scheduled to close. The Palace was cramped in its historic downtown building anyway.
"After this pandemic, it will be necessary to find the spectators one by one", anticipates this operator, and "it will not be worse to start from scratch", with a brand new place. Too bad for the cachet of the medieval streets that François 1er once walked, it is next to an old hypermarket, in the commercial area accessible by car, that the new project is being built.
And to compete with multiplexes in large cities or streaming, you have to invest in increasingly comfortable armchairs and giant screens, 16 meters long for the largest of the five theaters of the future Ciné Sologne.
The conductor of these 2,8 million euros work is Cédric Aubry, who has made a specialty of building cinemas in small towns, considered not profitable enough by the big networks.
The pandemic? "This is not a reason to give up," he says on the Romorantin site, while tracking down on the site the sealing defects of the metal and concrete structure, before the installation of the 600 seats. .
"We have to create an audience, attract people who say to themselves + I would go to the cinema +, but who see the small local cinema and say to themselves + I will give up," explains Mr. Aubry.
A way, according to him too, to respond "modestly" to the message "on the abandonment of the territories" formulated during the crisis of "yellow vests". And if we are to believe the recipe has everything to succeed: the cinema he remade in Varennes (Meuse) has grown in a few years from 80.000 to 200.000 spectators, and that of Sens (Yonne) from 100.000 to 300.000 spectators.