Indian Travellings, 2006 – 2025
Photographs by Simon Edelstein 
Exhibition from 21 November 2025 to 21 February 2026
From Monday to Saturday, from 10 am to 7 pm, free admission.

After a first exhibition at the Plaza devoted to the disappearance of old movie theatres around the world, Simon Edelstein continues his photographic journey with a second episode dedicated to India. The photographer and filmmaker travelled across the country for nearly twenty years, tracing the remnants of these temples of the seventh art—now deserted or transformed. The exhibition can be discovered in the public areas of the Mont-Blanc Centre, above the Cinéma Plaza.

Through this extraordinary photographic journey emerges a cinephile, vibrant, and colourful India, where every cinema hall and building tells a story of popular fervour and the joy of collective experience. Overwhelmed by modernity and threatened with oblivion, these structures bear witness to the splendour of a disappearing architectural and social heritage. Abandoned ticket booths, torn seats, and faded facades compose a landscape that reveals the fragile beauty of India’s forgotten cinemas. A fragile memory, whose loss these photographs seek to ward off.

Simon Edelstein
Simon Edelstein is a Swiss filmmaker, cinematographer, and photographer born in 1942 in Geneva, where he still lives. Trained at the photography school in Vevey, he began his career as a photographer for Lui and Vogue magazines before joining the television set of Télévision Suisse Romande (TSR) in 1966 as a cameraman. He directed more than a hundred television programmes and worked as director of photography on several films by Michel Soutter. As a filmmaker, he directed several feature films, including Les Vilaines Manières (1973), recently restored and presented at the Locarno Film Festival and the Cinémathèque suisse.
Since 2006, Simon Edelstein has travelled the world in search of old cinemas, tracing their remnants before they disappear. Around a thousand theatres have fed this passionate quest, which he has pursued across a dozen Indian states. A journey between wonder and nostalgia.

Book release: LES CINÉMAS EN INDE, UN PATRIMOINE EXCEPTIONNEL
The new book by Simon Edelstein and Elisabeth Christeler extends in images and stories the twenty-year exploration of India’s old cinemas.

LES CINEMAS EN INDE, UN PATRIMOINE EXCEPTIONNEL
by Elisabeth Christeler and Simon Edelstein
Jonglez Editions, 2025
Available on-site at Large/Kiosk
Mont-Blance Centre, 3rd floor.
Open from Monday to Friday, from 12pm to 7pm
On Saturday, from 10 am to 6 pm.