KABUL: A renowned Kabul cinema that for decades attracted the city’s film fans is being demolished to make way for a shopping mall, journalists saw on Thursday.

Built in the 1960s, the Ariana was pilla­g­ed and destroyed in Afghanistan’s civil war of 1992-1996, before a French-led restoration effort that saw it reopen in 2004.

But with the return in 2021 of Taliban authorities and their ban of films, music, and other entertainment under their strict interpretation of Islamic law, the cinema was given over to the occasional propa­ganda film before being shut for good.

On Thursday, a bulldozer smashed walls amid piles of rubble at the site.

A banner stated that a “standard modern market is going to be built”.

“It shattered my heart, the news of the demolition of the Ariana Cinema. We had a lot of good memories from the cinema,” a 65-year-old Kabul resident, who declined to give her name for security reasons, said.

In the 1970s, it used to screen “Indian, Iranian movies in the early years; later on, they also started to screen Russian, English, French, and European movies as well”, the woman said.

“They used to screen revolutionary movies, movies that showed the struggle of the people, and people used to watch them with a lot of passion.”

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2025