As of: February 20, 2024, 6:02 a.m
By: Johannes Thoma
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Soon a historic recording: film premiere of “Alpzyt” at the “Starlight” in Weilheim in June 2017. Georg Werner (right) with director Thomas Rickenmann.
© Ruder/Archive
Weilheim's oldest cinema, the "Starlight", closes at the end of August.
As tenant and operator Georg Werner explained, the owner of the building does not want to extend the lease.
Weilheim – “I would have liked to have continued,” says Werner, who has run the cinema on Schützenstrasse since 2012.
The owner, a Starnberg real estate agent, recently informed him that he would not be extending the contract, which expires on August 31, and that he was instead planning to redesign the building to accommodate offices.
Werner regrets this because, despite the general decline in visitors over the past two decades and numerous investments in the recent past, the business has paid off for him.
The Peitinger, now 63 years old, has been running the Lagerhaus cinema in Schongau since 1989.
Both houses are considered arthouse cinemas and have received several awards from the Bavarian Ministry of Culture for their “outstanding annual film program”.
He will not look for a new location for a cinema in Weilheim.
Over for the “Starlight”: Weilheim’s oldest cinema has to close
In addition to the loyal visitors, the Weilheim high school and Agenda 21 will also miss the cinema: the high school offered the “Cinéfête” in the Starlight cinema for a week every year, French films for the students with French lessons.
The Weilheimer Agenda has been inviting people to a cinema evening once a month since 2019.
The last one is expected to take place in June, says Werner.
He is currently assuming that he will close the cinema at the end of June, because experience shows that July and August are the months with the lowest sales.
“Otherwise I’ll pay extra,” says Werner, who is planning to put together a special farewell program.
“Until then, we’ll keep pushing, we’ll keep showing good films.”
Around 60 years of cinema history in the building comes to an end
The end of “Starlight” marks the end of around 60 years of cinema history in the building, which was built by Max Kriesmair in the 1950s and initially housed a carpet shop, as son Max Kriesmair, who inherited the area, remembers.
He sold this building and the property facing Münchener Straße to the real estate agent in 2012.
By the way: Everything from the region is also available in our regular Schongau newsletter. And in our Weilheim-Penzberg newsletter.
Kriesmair, born in 1957, still remembers that at the end of the 1960s, in addition to the “Starlight”, there was also a cinema on Rathausplatz (today Pyko-Autohaus), a “Post-Kino” (today “Echter”) and the “Scala” at the “Birkenau” restaurant.
In the future, the district town will only have the Trifthof cinema, which opened in 1996 and has five screens.
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