Hanoi Cinémathèque, the 14-year-old nostalgic rendezvous for cinema lovers, will close down at the end of November and make way for a shopping mall.

Back in 2002, when Hanoi’s state-owned cinemas were in a state of disrepair, and private cinemas were not yet widely available, the establishment of Hanoi Cinémathèque was a relief for cinephiles in the capital.

Situated in a small alley of Hai Ba Trung Street in Hoan Kiem District, and characterized by its Art Decó design, the cinema has only one 89-seat theater screening classic international and Vietnamese films for free.

For many Hanoians, the cinema has been their ‘cinema paradiso’ (paradise cinema), a reference to the title of the 1988 Italian film in which the protagonist spends his childhood growing up on the movies he sees at a run-down cinema named Paradiso.

The love of Gerry

Hanoi Cinémathèque was established in 2002 by American man Gerald Herman, who calls Vietnam his second home and sees the cinema as a source of inspiration for young Vietnamese filmmakers.

Born in the suburbs of New York City and educated at the prestigious film school of New York University, Herman at one time worked in Hollywood before settling in Vietnam in 1992.

His collection of 3,500 movies are sorted thematically and screened throughout the year, and include categories like French New Wave and Italian neo-realism.

Herman has spent his own money buying the rights to classic Vietnamese movies and turned them into high-quality DVDs, which he uses to promote Vietnamese cinema to an international audience.

Directors including Philip Noyce, Ira Sachs, John Cameron Mitchell, Todd Solondz, Tim Zinnemann, Dang Nhat Minh and Nguyen Vinh Son have held seminars at Hanoi Cinémathèque at the invitation of Herman.

Applying his own education as a director and film producer, Herman has directed the short film A Dream in Hanoi (2009) and produced the documentary Finding Phong (2015), which tells the story of a Vietnamese transgender.

“I often call him Gerry, a man to whom I dedicate all my respect and love,” Vietnamese director Nguyen Vinh Son wrote on his personal Facebook page. “I know that Hanoi Cinémathèque was his biggest wish in life … For so many years he has been living away from his home country and family to put all his effort into the cinema despite innumerable challenges along the way.”

“At least you gave it your best, Gerry. I admire and thank you. And for cinema lovers, my heart goes out to you,” Son continued, referring to the closure of Herman’s Hanoi Cinémathèque.

Mourning

The cinema will screen its final movies on November 30 before closing down to give way to a shopping mall project that will replace the entire 22A Hai Ba Trung area.

A group of foreign and Vietnamese cinema lovers, who name their campaign ‘Mourning,' have taken to Facebook to voice their protest against the cinema’s closure.

“The Cinémathèque has been a beacon of culture in Hanoi. It is where week after week we watched the best movies from all over the world,” the group wrote in one of its posts on the social media site.

“With its Art Déco railings, its café and its huge tree, the courtyard is an oasis of peace at the core of an otherwise busy and noisy neighborhood,” the post continued.

These values will soon be replaced in Hanoi’s rapid modernization, and the capital’s cinema lovers will no doubt rush to bid farewell to a paradise that has been their own.