Shipping container cinemas for small Russian cities

A chain of one hundred cinemas made out of shipping containers is set to be installed in small cities across Russia.

Russian company Teterin Film plans to roll out the project in towns with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants by September 2016, with the first cinema to be installed in Lyudinovo, a city in the Kaluga region south-west of Moscow.

The aim of the project is to enable residents of Russian towns to access films, and, in turn, to support Russian filmmaking. The company’s director Oleg Teterin has stated that one third of the Russian population has no access to a cinema, and that 668 Russian towns with a combined population of 50 million lack a local cinema.

According to Mr Teterin, the cost of installing a cinema within a shipping container is far less than building a conventional structure, with construction of a shipping container cinema containing five screens taking only two weeks and costing 19.5 million rubles (US$295,000). These lower prices will allow Teterin Film to sell tickets for 2.5 times less than traditional cinemas.

While the cinemas will screen international films, priority will be given to Russian films.

Source: The Moscow Times