The new Alice Guy cinema has opened its doors in Bobigny

Six theaters, 865 seats, and affordable prices: the new public establishment allows Bobigny to rediscover cinema, seven years after the closure of the Magic.

With Jean-Pascal Zadi as sponsor and entertainer, the first screenings were sold out on Wednesday, March 11, at the opening of the new cinema Alice Guy in Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis), a public hall like more than 400 others in France. “Realize the crazy luck you have,” the 45-year-old artist said to the “young people of Bobigny.”

He spoke facing the yellow seats, all occupied, in the large auditorium where “Le Rêve américain” was going to be screened, in which he stars alongside Raphaël Quenard. “I came from far away and if I succeeded in becoming the sponsor of a cinema, anyone can become what they want!” joked the Seine-Saint-Denis native, raised in Normandy.

The cinema establishment has been long-awaited in the prefecture city of Seine-Saint-Denis, the youngest and poorest department in metropolitan France. The city of over 55,000 inhabitants had no cinema since the closure of the Magic in 2019, which only had two theaters in a neglected shopping center that was demolished. However, the population benefited from itinerant screenings.

With its six theaters accessible to people with reduced mobility, the new cinema Alice Guy relies on its prices—4 to 7 euros—and the diversity of its offerings, from blockbusters to art house films, to attract a young audience. A café-library will open in its lobby, as the city has no general bookstore. A result of a total investment of 23 million euros, the three-level complex appears spacious, elegant, and very well equipped (4K and 2K digital projectors, 3D equipment). Three of its six theaters can host live performances.

“The youth are a bit abandoning cinema, and it’s good to have places where they can meet and do something other than hang out in the streets, I know what that’s like,” Jean-Pascal Zadi told AFP, half-serious, half-joking, imagining being “the sponsor of the first ‘dates’ between teens” that these theaters will house.

“Two cinemas are now part of the largest public cinemas in France and Europe: the one in Bobigny and the one in Montreuil,” boasted Patrick Bessac (PCF) in front of the public, president of the Est Ensemble community of municipalities, “which built this cinema.” Out of the 2,112 cinema establishments in the country, 428 are municipal cinemas under direct management, according to the National Cinema Center.

The Est Ensemble territory, comprising nine cities in Seine-Saint-Denis, also boasts operating “the largest network of public cinemas in France,” with now six establishments including the Alice Guy cinema. The new cinema in Bobigny is the first to bear the name of the first female director in the history of cinema. This name was chosen by residents following a “citizen consultation.”