Suspense Grips Douala Inhabitants as Cinema House is Destroyed

A cinema house in Douala, Littoral region of Cameroon called "Le Wouri" has been completely destroyed.

According to sources, the cinema hall had become a shadow of itself before its closure in January 19, 2009, a week after that of the Abbia.

TCR gathered that the destruction exercise of the cinema house caught the attention of many Douala denizens to the site where it was situated, in the Akwa neighbourhood of Douala.

Our source also added that traffic was seriously hampered in this area during destruction of the cinema hall on Friday March 30, 2018. Some people even thought an accident had occurred there before understanding later, what was happening.

According to a callbox operator not far from the demolished cinema hall, it was a bulldozer that carried out the demolition works on the cinema hall. TCR learnt that the demolition exercise had even started from inside weeks before it was extended to the outside and that the ongoing destruction exercise could span for a period of six months.

 However, nothing official has filtered out as concerns the reason for the demolition of the cinema house.

In the meantime, speculations are rife that a new building that will house various film projects will be built on the site of the former “Le Wouri” cinema house.

As a reminder, the cinema house "Le Wouri" just like Abbia, belonged to the Fotso group.

Cameroon is one country where the cinema industry is fast losing its grounds as most cinema houses had long been abandoned and are fast turning into ruins, begging for resuscitation.

The government of this Central African country has often been chided by its citizens most especially those that are in the entertainment sector, of doing very little to promote not only the cinema business but the movie industry in general. By Landzeh Verla