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  Educating Through Cinema

  Even during the time when the artistic prospects of the new cinematic technology remained the subject of intense debate, some took notice of cinema’s educational and propagandistic potential. Already at the start of the century, local governments and organizations in Lodz and other Polish cities took steps to harness the new medium. The most lasting and influential such initiative in Lodz was the Municipal Educational Cinematograph (MEC). 

   

  The MEC was established by Aleksy Rżewski, the first mayor of Lodz after Poland regained its sovereignty at the end of World War I, and was part of a nationwide project supported by the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Enlightenment. As a public cinema-theater, the MEC was intended to provide low-cost access to quality films and to offer education through cinematography. The more veiled agenda for the establishment of the MEC and other such cinematic institutions was to hold back the “demoralizing” influence of the overt eroticism that characterized many of the commercial cinematic productions. 

   

  In 1922, the MEC moved into a building located at Wodny Market, near the Źródliska Park. Built in the 1870s, the structure first served the Lodz Rifle Association and later the Artisan Club; after the end of World War I, the building housed a library and the Public Municipal University. The space was renovated and adapted to new requirements in 1923: the foyer was enlarged, and the size of the auditorium was more than doubled, to nearly 500 seats. Two years later, another space was added to serve as a 300-seat lecture hall. The building also had a library and a reading room. In the late 1920s, the MEC started to build up a collection of films that could be rented out to schools. 

   

  The programming of the MEC, at least in its early years, was focused on two goals: offering films that would supplement educational programs in public schools, and providing wholesome entertainment to the working class. The fare for the former included cinematic renditions of episodes from Polish history and literature, while films for the latter included documentaries focused on nature and geography— “the cheapest way to travel around the world,” according to the advertisements. Besides supplying inexpensive access to screenings of documentaries and artistically ambitious films, the MEC organized workshops and lectures for children, adolescents, and adults. The regular advertisements in the Yiddish-language press for film screenings taking place at the MEC indicate that its mission extended to the Jewish inhabitants of Lodz. During its heyday, the MEC served hundreds of thousands visitors a year (for instance in 1927, it had nearly 700,000 visitors). At first, prices of tickets at the MEC were the lowest in the city, and free admissions were available for qualified visitors—the unemployed, soldiers stationed in Lodz, and children from local orphanages. Concerned by the competition, owners of private cinemas were alternately applying for licenses to run similar institutions elsewhere in Lodz (already in 1922, the owner of Flora wanted to replicate a MEC in Baluty) or trying to curtail the MEC’s operations. The MEC, however, continued to flourish, inducing the authorities to draw up plans for the construction of a larger public cinema venue and a satellite institution in Baluty. None of these plans were realized. 

   

  By 1930, the popularity of the MEC and its revenues declined considerably; its lackluster programming failed to draw audiences, and its ticket-prices could not compete with inexpensive private theaters. Faced with the economic crisis of 1933, the municipal government was unable to cover the deficit and was forced to cease its support. The movie theater was leased out and continued to stay open until 1939, but the venue no longer focused on an educational agenda. Some time later, the building was demolished.