Greeks Fear for Fate of Historic Athens Cinemas

EFKA argued that such a status would deter investors from putting money into the Astor building, and that, in the case of Ideal, the new owner's business plan foresees the cinema remaining. But its objection has raised suspicions.

"When a public body can change its attitude in less than three months, I think there is a big credibility issue," said the owner of the Astor cinema, Babis Kontarakis, "unless it's the new norm for public officials to try to 'deceive' their interlocutors, even when they constitute the entire film community that supported from the first moment the preservation of cinemas in the city."

'Our cinemas, our city'

Photo: Astor Petros Gkotsis

The Ideal began operating in 1921 as 'Salon Ideal', within a building built in the 1880s by the German architect Ernst Ziller. The Astor began operating just after World War Two, though its location had been used to show films since 1908.

They are two of the last remaining, after the Apollon and Attikon cinemas were among 45 buildings badly damaged by fire during riots in February 2012 against painful austerity measures enacted at the behest of foreign creditors to reduce Greece's debt. The Apollon and Attikon never worked again.

Under the rallying cry of 'our cinemas, our city', so far some 5,000 people have signed the petition seeking to save the Ideal and the Astor, and they have some big-name backers from the world of film.

"Cinema is our heritage," German film director Fatih Akin said in a YouTube message on April 5. "It's what our ancestors always did - telling stories through which they better understood themselves and the world. Save the cinemas. These heritage sites are a sin to close."

Film critic and journalist Ilias...