In the Egyptian desert, in the Sinnai Peninsula, there is an arrangement of wooden seats known as the End of the World Cinema. The arrangement of seats in an isolated area gives and apocalyptic look, a lot like a cinema used by some ancient mysterious civilization.
This cinema is not as ancient as it looks and was built about a decade ago. The cinema consists of 150 worn-out seats, broken screen foundations and a ruined building which housed the projector and generator. The project was the idea of a Frenchman who bought the cinema parts from a theater in Cairo.
An Estonian photographer by the name of Kaupo Kikkas, recently took photographs of the astonishing site and described it in the following words:
“On a sunny day at the very beginning of this millennium, a crazy Frenchman found himself in the desert of Sinai. After some puffs of a magic smoke he wondered – how come there are no cinemas in the middle of the desert? He flew back to Paris and arranged some money. After that he went to Cairo to buy original seats and projection equipment from an old cinema theater. Then came back to Sinai, arranged a generator for electricity, and a monstrous tractor to pull up the screen that was like a gigantic sail. And now more or less everything was ready for the premier.”
Local authorities were not pleased by the opening of a cinema in the middle of their land, without their permission. An ‘accident’ at the premiere caused the electric generator to be destroyed and no movie was ever screened at the cinema. The cinema will remain abandoned even in the future, since it is forbidden to go into the desert in Sinai without taking a tour or organized trip. The cinema is not on the route of any of the toThe Mours and the nearest one passes the cinema from two miles away.
Due to confusion between the government, the Frenchman and the Bedouins, none of the locals ever talk about the cinema either. With so many restrictions on a seemingly innocent project, it looks almost impossible that this cinema will ever meet an audience or the screening that it was built for.