The first movie theater in Kythera, He was brought here in 1932 by the businessman Yiannis Dapontes from Country. The screenings took place in the auditorium of the Kythira Association at the entrance to Chora. The projector was manually operated with a crank, and the projector was connected to the generator of the adjacent olive mill.
The films were made of celluloid, a highly flammable material at the time, which is why people were initially afraid of the movies, because Fires had broken out. Dapontes had brought along the machine operator, the Michel Armao, an experienced Syrian Franko-Levantine. The Polybius, a penniless exile of that era, took charge of the advertising, traveling up and down the town with a colorful cry «Ladies and gentlemen, come out tonight to enjoy a film by Charlot… The movie is a talking picture!!!!!!!!!»
Regarding this last point, of course, Polybius was mistaken, because the films were silent movies—that is, they had no spoken dialogue and were sometimes accompanied by live music played by folk musicians. The actors performed using pantomime, and the plot was summarized. After the occupation, the the Fatsia-Fouriari brothers in Meadow and Manolis Sofios in River, They brought a traveling movie theater and, for many years, provided entertainment by touring the villages of Kythira before and after the island was electrified, carrying the projectors and all the screening equipment with them. Sofios’s projector was then taken over by Tassos Provataris and Theodoros Archolekas.
Those unforgettable outdoor screenings from our childhood are deeply etched in our memories, because it’s so much nicer to laugh or cry along with other people while sitting in uncomfortable seats and freezing theaters than to watch a movie alone in the comfort of your own home.
