TEHRAN-The number of cinema halls across Iran is to reach 1,000 by March 2026, director general of the cinematic and audio-visual technology development office of Iran Cinema Organization has said.

“There are currently 366 cinemas and cineplexes consisting of 750 halls in different parts of the country,” Mohammadreza Faraji said. “We hope to add another 100 halls by the end of the current Iranian year (ends in March 2024),” IRNA quoted him as saying on Tuesday.

Despite all the measures taken to construct new movie theaters, renovate old ones, and equip old halls with modern technology in the past years, there are still cities with no cinema halls.

Regarding the priority for building new halls, Faraji said: “There are 188 cities, with a population of over 50,000, which have no cinemas. Among them, there are 69 cities, with a population of more than 100,000, which are mostly situated in the underdeveloped regions of the country. These cities will have the priority for the construction of new cinemas”.

Private companies and individuals own 27% of the movie theaters while the whopping 73% belongs to government or semi-government organizations.

The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance and affiliated organizations, including Farabi Cinema Foundation, Cinema City Institute and Iranian Youth Cinema Society, have 31.2% of the cinemas to their name. However, the seating capacity created by the private sector is higher than that of the ministry, 32.6% of the cinema capacity is owned by the private sector. The same capacity created by municipalities is a meager 9.4%.

One of the cultural development indicators of each country according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is the number of its moviegoers and one of the main prerequisites of surveying progress in the film industry is the number of cinemas in a country.

With about 85 million people, there is currently only one screen for 113,333 people, which indicates the severe shortage of halls in all regions and proves the need for more effort by the state bodies as well as the private section to invest more in this field.

SS/