Kabul cinema: A witness to Afghanistan's metamorphosis falls to Taliban bulldozers

A movie theater that bore witness to Afghanistan's modern history—from the cosmopolitan vibrancy of the 1960s to the silencing and repression that followed not one but two Taliban takeovers—has been razed to make way for a shopping mall.

The Ariana Cinema in Kabul, the capital, had remained closed, save for occasional propaganda movies, since 2021, when the Taliban swept back to power. And yet it stood as a landmark in the city's center, a reminder of art, culture and pleasure for many Afghans.

A bulldozer started dismantling the building last week. Eventually, a $3.5 million shopping center, designed to hold more than 300 shops, restaurants, a hotel and a mosque on eight floors, will rise in its place, said Nematullah Barakzai, a spokesperson for the Kabul municipality.

The theater's destruction is an indication of the ideological and economic priorities of the Taliban administration, which is desperate for new sources of funding because of Western sanctions and the loss of foreign aid.

While Afghanistan's economy grew by 4.3% this year, according to the World Bank, per capita it is shrinking because returning refugees have swollen the population. The new arrivals have, however, helped to fuel a construction boom, which the Taliban are seeking to capitalize on by selling land for projects that can generate revenue.

Barakzai said the cinema's equipment and archives would be safely stored and might be used again. "Since cinemas are currently not active in the country, we cannot leave this building unused," he said.

But a flurry of restrictions imposed by the Taliban in recent years indicates that such a revival is unlikely as long as they rule the country.

The Taliban have banned national television channels from broadcasting foreign series and, more recently, from showing any images of living beings -- a strict interpretation of Islamic law that forbids the depiction of humans and animals. Authorities have also ordered Afghans to cease uploading videos to platforms like YouTube. The city's other former movie houses remain shut.

This month, officers from the Taliban's department of vice and virtue detained four young men in the western city of Herat because they had dressed up as characters from the British television drama "Peaky Blinders." Authorities accused them of promoting Western values through their attire.

The Ariana Cinema opened in the early 1960s and became a favored place among Afghans who wanted to watch Indian Bollywood movies or Iranian cinema. Kabul was known at the time as "the Paris of Central Asia," and it attracted all kinds of visitors, from hippies to tourists from neighboring countries. An affluent urban elite in Kabul frequented the Intercontinental Hotel, a hilltop landmark that opened in 1969 and became known for haute cuisine and lavish parties.

During the civil war in the 1990s, the cinema was severely damaged. During the first period of Taliban rule, from 1996 to 2001, it was closed.

But it was restored in 2004 and quickly became a communal hub again.

Even its technical failings, like frequent glitches that forced moviegoers to return another day to see the end of a film, became part of its charm, according to Mohammad Naeem Jabarkhel, who once owned a bakery nearby.

He said he tried to go once a week. "At that time, the price of a cinema ticket was equal to the price of six or eight pieces of dry bread, and actually, I should not have spent that money on going to watch the movies," Jabarkhel, 38, said. "But the interest and desire to go to the cinema lived in my heart."

Basir Mujahid, a renowned Afghan actor and director, said the Ariana Cinema embodied one of the last remaining signs of that hopeful time in Kabul. When the Taliban and the U.S.-backed government agreed to a ceasefire during the Eid holiday in 2018, many Taliban fighters came to the theater with the group's flags and weapons to watch one of his movies, he said.

"We were very happy that maybe they would value art and culture, but unfortunately, that was not the case," Mujahid said. When the Taliban regained power, the cinema closed again.

"The destruction of Ariana Cinema is not just a construction operation, but rather the end of an era in the cultural life of the Afghan capital," he added.

While its devotees consider the Ariana a symbol of Afghanistan's modern cultural history, Barakzai argued that because it was a business, the building cannot be considered historically significant.

"Even when it was operating as a cinema, it was a commercial place because ticket sales were conducted there," he said. Under a 12-year contract, the city will own 45% of the shares in the new project, with the rest held by a private company, he said. Construction is expected to take about a year.