New Horizons Association (NHA,www.nowehoryzonty.pl) has received support from the city of Wrocław (www.wroclaw.pl) and will launch the new cinema in the center of the city. The Association decided to cooperate with Helios Cinema Network (www.helios.pl), their partner during the T-Mobile New Horizons Festival since 2006, and lease the multiplex cinema building in order to redesign it into a totally transformed space devoted to art-house film. The project is focused not only for cinema lovers that come to the festival each year, but especially the local viewers living in Wrocław, as the cinema is a part of Wrocław The European Capital of Culture 2016 programme. The programme will offer most recent premieres fitting the cinema's profiles as well as special events for cinema lovers of all ages, including several educational events. Radosław Drabik, the project initiator and Managing Director of NHA told FNE about the reasons and details behind the new venue.
Why did you decide to open the first mutiplex solely devoted to art-house cinema?
Helios cinema in Wrocław was our main festival object since we moved the New Horizons Festival to this city in 2006. The creation of a mutiplex cinema wasn't so much a choice for us, as it was initially a multi-room facility that we decided to lease from the Helios Cinema Network. As the festival grew, we wanted this place to develop with it. The fact that we will mange that big of a space, located in the very center of Wrocław is both an exciting and challenging undertaking for us, but we are focused not only on creating a place to screen more art-house films, but also educate and broaden the horizons of the local audience.
What will be the criteria for creating the cinema's weekly program?
We want to focus on challenging, art-house and experimental cinema that the viewers come to see during the New Horizons festival, but we are also interested in the "cinema of the middle" and screenings of films from directors such as Pedro Almodovar, Woody Allen, Agnieszka Holland or Roman Polański. There is no reason for us to show films that the average viewer can see in any other cinema in the city, we want to be both interesting and educational with our programme. We plan to screen from 15 to 20 movies a week. In the Helios Cinema we have 9 screening rooms with 2329 seats available.
How to you plan to stay competitive with other multiplex chains?
The project is relieving major support from the city of Wrocław, which is the only reason that such a big undertaking was even possible on our part. Because we receive public donations we can afford to introduce tickets that will be 20% cheaper then what other cinema chains are asking nowadays. In Poland almost every multiplex company has chosen a weekday to give their clients a discount - we decided on Monday, when tickets will be sold for 11 PLN (2.6 EUR). On average the ticket price will be 15-17 PLN, but this will not be the only way for us to be competitive. New Horizons Association has transformed this place into a culture center oriented around cinema. We want it to be a place where people come to watch screenings of the current premieres, take educational lectures and watch retrospectives but also have the possibility to meet, drink great coffee and eat excellent food. It was our goal to transform this place from a mutiplex cinema to a space where films are revered, without pop-corn and laud adds.
What is the budget of the project and when do you expect to note first profits?
This a unique situation, when we started planning this project we really didn't look at it as an investment. We are receiving major support from the city and we plan redesign this 1800m2 space in order to introduce the cinema audience to the new types of cinema, especially people based in Wrocław. Because of our agreement with Helios Cinema Network we didn't have to invest in any new technology because it was already in place. Our part was to transform it. The average yearly cost of keeping Helios going is 12.5-13 million PLN, 25% of which is coming from the city funds. Our goal is to reach the number of 450 000 viewers visiting our cinema each year.
What films will launch the cinema's new program?
In the upcoming week we will present 13 titles, both premieres and most important films of the last couple of months. The premieres will include and independent comedy "Your sister's sister" awarded during last year's Cannes festival and a German drama "Stopped on Track" directed by Anderas Dresen. It is a fact that several significant titles are not making it to Wrocław cinemas or they are presented in 1-2 screenings. After the launch of Helios, the Wrocław audience will have their first chance to see films such as Unfair World, a Greek drama directed by Filippos Tsitos, Romanian "Best Intentions" Adrian Sitaru and the example of a brutal Russian cinema - "Twilight portrait" directed by Angelina Nikonlowa.
Is creating this cinema in a new form a way to educate the future audience?
Definitely yes. It is very important to give younger and older viewers access to the type of cinema that we plan to present. It is also very significant to create a space that will be a proper setting for them to get to know this these type of films better. We want to promote the culture of going to the cinema, outside of the multiplex structure. This cinema should be a place where one can stop and relax, spend a lot of time in an environment filled with culture. We want to open our doors to all types of cultural projects connected to film. It is a sure way to educate the viewer and make him more curious about the new horizons of contemporary cinema.
The cinema's programme for the autumn features: German films on music review as part of Avant Art Festival, live HD opera broadcasts from legendary The Metropolitan Opera of New York City (starting October 13th), Week of German Cinema (October 12th-18th), Silent Film Fest (October 12th-14th), Korean Film Festival (October 19th-25th), New Horizons Tournée (October 26th-November 1st), 3rd American Film Festival (November 13th-18th), Five Flavours Film Festival (October 27th-30th), "Werner Herzog's Other Worlds" retrospective (November 23rd-December 2nd). In October several educational courses will be available for the cinema audience including New Horizons of Film Education and Polish Film Academy and Film Academy.
