Kassamali Jaffer Hameer

Children

"The Royal was no exception with respect to the multiple cultural and social activities generally hosted by cinemas of the time, in so far as its public was presented in turn with musical entertainment, stage plays, lectures of all kinds, and – a common practice observed at least up to the early 1950s – a venue for gatherings of political and social associations.

When H.A. Jariwalla liquidated his business in Zanzibar in 1936 and moved to Dar es Salaam, where he subsequently opened three further cinema houses, the Royal Cinema Theatre was leased in December 1937 to Kassamali Jaffer Hameer, a prominent member of the Ismaili community. He renamed it Majestic and, as a joint proprietor of the Majestic Kinema [sic] Company Ltd. (later Zanzibar Theatres Ltd.), eventually purchased it in 1942;…. Completely destroyed by fire on 8th February 1954, it was re-opened on 20th October 1955 under the same proprietorship and name 

The Zanzibar Voice, Vol. 34, No. 17, 10-23 – 1955, p. 6., but now bore witness to a modern style of building with only minor traces of the “Saracenic” outline of the previous structure [See illustration No. 2]. In a similar change of hands and name, the Alexandra – renamed Darajani Cinema and managed by a certain Ebrahim Sheikh Esmailji 

“His Britannic Majesty’s High Court for Zanzibar. Insolvency… – was eventually purchased by Sawakshaw H. Talati, a joint proprietor of the Dar es Salaam registered Indo-African Theatres Ltd., and operated as the Empire from 1940 onwards. S. H. Talati also opened the Sultana Cinema in Malindi in December 1951 after protracted negotiations and a rather difficult building procedure 

Application by S. H. Talati for a lease of Government Land for…. Renamed Cine Afrique in 1964, only the façade of this cinema has survived [See illustration No. 3].

Illustration No. 3

With a seating capacity of 850 and an average weekly attendance of 500 for the Royal Cinema, and of 400 seats and a weekly attendance of about 800 for the Alexandra alias Darajani Cinema 

ZNA AB 5/111 – Memorandum on films, their educational uses and…, these two cinemas provided pleasure to an audience that according to a census taken for one week in 1926 by the Protectorate Government was composed of “4.35 % Arabs, 46.10 % Indians and 49.55 % Natives”, adding up to a total attendance of 2 672 

Ibid.. These figures can be compared to the proportion of the different ethnic groups given in the 1931 census for the Zanzibar Protectorate 

Although we should bear in mind the highly dubious and…, according to which “Arabs” constituted 14.18 %, “Indians” 6.47 % and “Natives” 78.17 % of the Zanzibari population 

The 1931 census figures were as follows : of a total 235,428…. This indicates that Indians as the most assiduous audience were overrepresented, and secondly, a more surprising phenomenon, that a relatively high proportion of “Natives” had a lively interest in the pictures from early on.

Although almost all of the 120 odd films imported annually to Zanzibar during the second half of the 1920s were Hollywood and UK productions, it was observed that

“There is a noticeable increase in the number of films obtained direct from India. Many of these represent historical tales and scenes taken from Hindu mythology. Others tend more and more to depict aspects of modern life in large cities which are often unsuitable for exhibition 

Despatch (confidential) by Residency, Zanzibar, to Secretary of…”.

Import statistics available from the 1940s onwards demonstrate that this trend was further established and reinforced. Roughly 55 % of the approximately 260 films imported annually between 1 941 and 1949 were US productions, while 35 % came from India. The latter thus superseded UK productions, which now constituted no more than 5 %, while the remaining 5 % were Egyptian and European (continental) films 

These figures were acquired by consulting the different…. The same proportion was more or less maintained for the period from 1954 to 1963, when annual imports rose to 390 films on average 

The percentage of films imported to Zanzibar from 1954 to 1963…. The growing popularity of Indian mythological epics, social dramas and comedies, most of them made in Bombay, among Zanzibari audiences, was particularly obvious during the peak years 1956-58, when 420 or 30.7 % of a total of 1,369 films imported were Indian movies – a virtual boom undoubtedly due to the advent of directors Mehboob Khan and Raj Kapoor, as well as to emerging film stars such as Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, Nimmi, Nutan and the unforgettable Nargis [see illustrations No. 4, 5, and 6]. Comical characters were prominently featured by Master Bhagwan, also known as the “Indian Charlie Chaplin 

Named as such in an advertisement in Filmindia, Vol. 15, No. 3,…”, and his female counterpart Uma Devi alias Tuntun. The first Kiswahili dubbings probably appeared in the late 1950s – an innovation that certainly added to the popularity of some Indian comedies among Zanzibari and East African audiences, now able for the first time to catch the dialogues of their favourite stars

This was the case for Nari Ghadiali’s Jungle Queen (1956)….

With their premises confiscated “for the benefit of the people”, as the expropriation without compensation was euphemistically referred to, they were left with the alternative of either going into exile or contenting themselves with being mere employees. Both options were availed of. Kassamali J. Hameer, former owner of the Majestic, which was nationalised in November 1964, appealed in vain from Lindi on the Tanzanian mainland for the return of his property or adequate compensation for the loss.

“Tonight at the Empire” Cinema and urbanity in Zanzibar, 1920s to 1960s" Brigitte Reinwald: Dans Afrique & histoire 2006/1 (vol. 5), pages 81 à 109