Zanzibar had the first cinema in East Africa, the Majestic Cinema, built back in the 1920s by colonial architect John Sinclair, but it burned down after a projector fire. It was rebuilt a few years later and it is still standing today. The last of three cinemas on the island, ‘Cine Afrique’, was recently closed and converted into a supermarket. It is now said the remains of the Majestic are due to be renovated and turned into an office block for civil servants. All over Tanzania, since the economic collapse of the 1980s, cinemas have closed. The only cinema left is on the island of Pemba, where ZIFF holds repeat screenings of the main films shown in the Amphitheatre in Unguja.
This is the dire story of cinema culture in Tanzania where only the newly built 1990s cinema complex of the New World Cinemas in Dar Es Salaam are the only 3 operating cinemas in the whole country of over 30 million people.
As the promoter of cinema and art in East Africa and the organizer of the biggest event celebrating the culture of the dhow countries, any act undertaken by ZIFF reaches a symbolic level since it is the apple of the eye of culture in the region. It is for that reason and amongst many others that ZIFF proposes the current project of renovating and maintaining the old Majestic cinema in Stone Town, Zanzibar
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