Relationship Between Movie Theaters and Audience During the Pandemic: “Beyoğlu 1989 E-Bulletin” as an Example

Covid-19, a disease that transformed into a pandemic at the beginning of 2020, caused catastrophic results in the world and Turkey. There have been some restrictions on trade, education, tourism, and art. Daily life was not interrupted but some services and events that they have not primary functions (for some people) like “art” were on the verge of stopping and carried to the digital platforms. In this context, some corporations opened their archives and sometimes actual events to the public free of charge or for a certain amount of money. Art, which has always had “healing”, “mediating” and “unifying” effects, was consumed by the billions of people through digital devices. Considering art is both a sector and an industry, the unexpected phenomenon of Covid-19, which is a kind of crisis that occurs one in a hundred years and takes longer than expected, led to the temporary or permanent closure of some art and culture institutions. Due to these results, some supportive programs have been organized by official or non-official institutions to solve financial problems. In Turkey, all the movie theaters closed down on the 16th of March 2020 by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Some halls opened in July and August, however, because of lack of audience and of the increasing number of patients they have closed down again in November. 2019 was a bad year for the sector yet 2020 was even worse with the decline of the audience by the ratio of %90. Before the pandemic, there were some problems in terms of halls. In this context, some movie theaters tried to find solutions not to lose the audience and find financial support. Beyoğlu Movie Theater that began operating in 1989, had some financial problems before the pandemic. The managers of the hall created a project called “Beyoğlu 1989”, which was a kind of electronic bulletin, and started sending e-mails to the subscribers. This project, which was implemented for the first time in Turkey, has reached the 57th issue and 800 subscribers today and has turned into a kind of weekly electronic-digital cinema newspaper that is also promoted on the Instagram account of the Beyoğlu cinema with 45 thousand followers. The broadcast also follows the cinema agenda and undertakes the task of a written-visual archive. In conclusion, a movie theater that started operating in the analog age, today use all the possibilities and utilities of the digital age and also with the help of its owners and followers, creates a communication ecology to prevent the shutdown. The aim of this article is to examine an electronic bulletin (also a film magazine) “1989”, which is first in Turkey, with the qualitative method.