Azad is a

movie theater A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall ( Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...

located in Johnson Road,

Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), formerly known as Dacca, is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest Bengali-speaking city. It is the eighth largest and sixth most densely populated city ...

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

. Azad is one of the oldest movie theaters and the fourth oldest movie theater in the capital of the country.

History

In 1929, Mukul Banerjee, the then zamindar of Murapara, established a movie theater named "Mukul Talkies" in Old Dhaka.

R. C. Majumdar Ramesh Chandra Majumdar (known as R. C. Majumdar; 4 December 1888 – 11 February 1980) was a historian and professor of Indian history. Majumdar is a noted historian of modern India. He was a former Sheriff of Kolkata. Early life and educatio ...

, the then vice chancellors of Dhaka University, inaugurated the movie theater. On the opening day, Mukul Talkies screened the film ''

The Last Kiss "Last Kiss" is a 1961 romantic love song by Wayne Cochran, covered by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers, Canada's Wednesday, Pearl Jam, and others. Last Kiss or The Last Kiss may also refer to: Film * ''The Last Kiss'' (1931 film), a British Ind ...

'', which is said to be the first silent film produced in Dhaka. Yar Mohammad Khan rented Mukul Theatre to hold the

Awami League In Urdu language, Awami is the adjectival form for '' Awam'', the Urdu language word for common people. The adjective appears in the following proper names: *Awami Colony, a neighbourhood of Landhi Town in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan *Awami Front, wa ...

council meeting in the early in 1950s. Mukul Talkies was renamed Azad Cinema in 1964 after it was bought by Sher Ali Ramji, a

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...

film producer A film producer is a person who oversees film production. Either employed by a production company or working independently, producers plan and coordinate various aspects of film production, such as selecting the script, coordinating writing, di ...

. Ten years later, the ownership of the movie theater was transferred to A.U.M. Khalilur Rahman. On 23 December 2013, a fire, caused by electric short circuit, broke out in the movie theater, destroying much of its furniture. The movie theater suffered during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

and received an outstanding bill of .

Features

Azad usually shows old films. It has 1100 seats. Azad has three shows daily.

Controversy

Azad is popular for B-grade and adult film posters. Besides, there are allegations of involvement of drug addicts and people involved in anti-social activities with this movie theater. Its manager claimed that the posters were asked by the film distributors to put up. But he denied the second allegation.

References

{{Commons category Old Dhaka Cinemas in Dhaka 1929 establishments in British India