Thailand’s Movie Theatres

Relics, Ruins and The Romance of Escape
In bringing together his poignant photographs and the ephemera of a vanished culture, this book records an irreplaceable slice of social, cultural and movie history.

In the 1950s and 1960s, movie theatres across Thailand were important architectural statements and centres of social and cultural life. At a time when few houses had electricity, the local movie theatre was where people came together, irrespective of class or occupation. In today’s era of shopping-mall multiplexes and movies streamed on personal devices, the popularity of the standalone cinema has become a thing of legend; few remember the once-familiar scenes of overflowing crowds spilling out onto the streets or frantic ticket buyers thrusting fists full of cash through small ticket windows. In 2008, Philip Jablon (who now resides in Philadelphia, PA), then studying for a Master’s degree in Thailand, began recording the demise of