End of the World Cinema: a theatre abandoned in the Egyptian desert
There’s a true joy to going to the cinema that can never be rivalled by watching a film in the confines of the home. A cinematic experience encapsulates viewers within the very world of a movie, but few events might have been quite like a trip to the End of the World Cinema in Egypt.
Deep in the Sinai Desert stands the remnants of what might have been the most fantastic cinema in all of history, a unique opportunity to witness some of the world’s greatest films. Just imagine watching something like Lawrence of Arabia in such a place, feeling the heat of the movie blast off the endless sand.
The beautiful theatre has yet to receive its premiere, and judging from its appearance, it is unlikely to ever get one. The relentlessly howling winds of the desert cut sharply through the 700 weathered seats of the End of the World Cinema, something of a tragic sound for the history of the North African film industry.
Frenchman Diynn Eadel built the theatre in the late 1990s, but on the night of its premiere, a power cut was paid to the opening event. Naturally, providing power to such a remote location is a difficulty in its own right, but some historians believe that there was a sinister motive behind the power cut. Although rumours have never been confirmed, some say that the local authorities had not been happy about there being a huge cinema in the middle of a natural landscape and that they were the ones responsible for the failure of the theatre’s generator’s malfunctioning on opening night.
Eadel had said at the time that he would be playing Steven Spielberg’s 1993 science fiction fantasy work Jurassic Park as the End of the World Cinema’s first-ever movie. Unfortunately, Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum and a whole swathe of animatronic dinosaurs never made it onto the screen.
The promotional flyer for the cinema read that the purpose of the End of the World Cinema was “to prove that tourism is not necessarily a destructive element and that the Great Theater of Nature can reconcile us with the elements”. However, Eadel’s great dream remains a mere fantasy.
There are currently no plans to restore the remnants of this one-time hopeful film endeavour, and the cinema had at one point been vandalised and looted. Back in 2018, the Egyptian government decided to close the cinema to tourists, and now the damaged seats look out onto the skies and stars, lamenting what might have been.
