Gallery: Thailand’s forgotten cinemas
As Thailand's mall-bound movie mega-plexes rose to dominate the movie business, dozens of independent cinemas were unable to compete and went out of business.
Blogger Philip Jablon has put together a photographic archive of these derelict or converted movie theaters. Most of his images are from Thailand, though he does have interesting pictures from Laos and Myanmar, too.
“Ever since the convenience of the home-entertainment center has become widely available, movie theater-going has been on the path to extinction,” he says on his blog. “Declining audiences and rising operational costs have made the business feasible only for larger conglomerates, while the independent, family-run theater has been squeezed out of the picture. Here their memories are kept alive.”
Check out a selection of his theater photos in the gallery above. For the complete archive, visit the Southeast Asia Movie Theater Project.
