Rajkot’s Galaxy awaits face-lift, shuts for ‘maintenance’

The single-screen theatre at Galaxy Cinema

GCRPL is promoted by the Bhalodia family that has diverse business interests ranging across forging and casting to real estate and education institutes to cinema. Galaxy theatre has 689 seats, including 202 balcony seats. Inaugurated in February 1969, it was the first movie theatre in the entire Saurashtra to install a 70-mm high-resolution projector and have six tracks of sound. Before the advent of high and ultra high-definition recording technologies, 70 mm films used to provide the highest resolution films. The theatre was inaugurated by Ramanand Sagar in February 1969. The maiden show was Ankhe, a movie directed and produced by Sagar himself. From thereon, Galaxy has hosted almost all major Bollywood stars, including Amitabh Bachchan.

“Movies have been a passion for me. We imported the 70-mm film projector from Japan to give the best cinema experience to our audience. Theatres like Rupali, Natrajm etc in Ahmedabad had such projectors then, and later on, Paradise in Porbandar also installed it. But most of the theatres discarded them as they were unable to maintain them. At one time, Galaxy in Rajkot and Sterling in Mumbai were the only movie halls projecting movies recorded on 70-mm films,” Bhalodia further says.

Anthony Lawrence with the 70-mm film projector. Express

However, movie projection technologies underwent a paradigm shift with the advent of digital recording and storage systems. Galaxy had to eventually retire its 70-mm film projector in 2007. The management replaced the film projector with a digital projector and installed the film projector in what the management likes to call a museum section within the cinema hall. Currently, the 70-mm projector as well as others for that projected 8 mm, 16 mm and 35 mm films are encased in a glass cube in the reception area.

“The 70-mm projector is still in an operable condition. It is only that movies are no longer recorded on 70-mm films,” says Anthony Lawrence alias Tony, the manager of Galaxy cinema hall.

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He says that the decision to undergo maintenance shutdown was also taken to ensure that the theatre maintains its high standards. “Even in the era of online streaming, we would witness a full-house if a good movie was released. For example, Pushpa witnessed full houses on successive evenings and we showed it for four consecutive weeks,” says Lawrence, adding, “We don’t want to let the condition of the building affect the movie-watching experience and therefore, suspended the shows.” Rajkot has three operational multiplexes—Cosmoplex, Inox and R-World. However, with Galaxy closed temporarily, Rajashree remains the only single-screen theatre operational in the city as other single-screen theatres were shut down long ago.

The Bhalodias were also into the movie distribution business and had released around 4,000 movies via Galaxy Pictures.