Former Cinema

The elegant building on your left is known locally as Kinema Gjirokastra, a former cinema that tells a revealing story about the city’s recent past. It opened around 1988, at the very end of the communist era, and was then seen as the city’s brand-new cinema, a popular place where people came not only to watch Albanian films, but also to meet friends, go on dates or simply enjoy one of the few leisure activities available at the time. Back then, the Albanian national film studio was under the strict control of the communist regime and produced almost all films shown in the country, from feature films to documentaries and newsreels, all carrying a strong ideological message promoting socialist values, antifascist resistance and the official version of national history. For decades, these were the only films people could see in cinemas. After the fall of the regime in 1991, the cinema closed suddenly and remained abandoned for nearly thirty years. The interior slowly deteriorated, the furniture aged, and the building lost its cultural role, sometimes serving simply as a storage space. A first revival came in 2021 through a European project led by the Albanian National Centre of Cinematography. The cinema was digitised, fitted with a modern projector and a Dolby sound system, and partially reopened in October of that year, allowing locals to sit once again in a dark screening room after three decades without one. The reopening, however, was only partial, as the interior had not yet been renovated and regular programming struggled to take root. In 2023, a new chapter began with the launch of a full reconstruction project, aiming to turn this ageing building into a modern, comfortable cinema able to play a central cultural role in a UNESCO-listed city. For the people of Gjirokastër, this place remains both a strong memory of social life in the 80s and a symbol of cultural renewal for younger generations returning to the city.