Iconic Roxy Cinema to get a facelift, a new purpose — an auditorium with 500+ seats | Kolkata News

The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), which is planning to renovate the 115-year-old heritage building, wants to use it as an auditorium with advanced technology and a sound system.

“The renovated auditorium will have a seating capacity of more than 500 people. It will be used by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and also will be available on rent for holding events,” Mayor-In-Council (Market) Amiruddin told The Indian Express.

The tender is expected to be floated early next year with the civic body planning to spend Rs 8 crore on it. “It is a heritage building. So, instead of bringing any changes to its basic architectural design, the focus will be on bringing changes from inside,” said a KMC staffer.

Roxy Cinema in New Market area of Kolkata. (Express Photo by Partha Paul)

With a unique architecture – a semicircular hall with three floors for viewing – the landmark in the New Market area had been screening movies as late as 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic shut it down.

The building was unveiled in 1908-1909 and was then known as Empire Theatre where operas used to be held. In 1941, it was renamed Roxy Cinema after the iconic theatre in Mumbai, then Bombay. The first movie to be screened at the theatre was Ashok Kumar-starrer Naya Sansar, said a KMC staffer.

“It is an iconic building. Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose had watched Ashok Kumar’s Kismat at Roxy Cinema. The movie ran for nearly 36 weeks. Many few big personalities like Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand were said to be regular at the screenings,” said another KMC staffer.
Historian Haripada Bhowmick recalled: “It was in the 1970s, I remember, the queues for tickets were so long that one can’t imagine now.

To manage crowds, I remember Roxy Cinema managers would use barricades, and despite it, the area would be overcrowded, and mounted police with horses would come for crowd control.”

Pointing to the shutting of several single-screen theatres like Metro, Light House, Globe, Jyoti, Chaplin, and Elite, in and around the Esplanade area of Kolkata, film Scholar Someswar Bhowmik said: “There is a cultural shift now as no one watches films with passion… So definitely, the craze for the single-screen is no longer the same. Single screen is no longer viable. As far as Roxy Cinema is concerned, I have watched a few movies there, and I have some fond memories,” Bhowmick added.

The last film to be screened at Roxy was Bhoot Part One: The Haunted Ship.

With less number of auditoriums available in and around central and north Kolkata area, the KMC is hopeful that converting Roxy Cinema into an auditorium would be a fruitful venture.