Cinema Paradiso's spice island sequel

A group of film enthusiasts including documentary film-maker Nick Broomfield have launched a campaign to restore a lost Scottish architectural gem in the Unesco World Heritage Site of Stone Town on the Tanzanian island.

The Majestic Cinema, which was designed by architect John Houston Sinclair in the 1920s and was one of the first cinemas in Africa, has become dilapidated, with a leaking roof and broken chairs inside.

Now, a project has been launched by the Zanzibar International Film Festival to revitalise the building - known also as the "Cinema Paradiso of Zanzibar" - and they are hoping to attract a Scot to do the job.

The campaign is backed by Bafta award winning film-maker Broomfield, whose documentaries include Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer, Kurt and Courtney, and Battle for Haditha.

Broomfield told Scotland on Sunday: "The Majestic is a beautiful Art Deco cinema that the fantastic Scots architect John Sinclair built. He designed a number of buildings in Zanzibar and the Majestic is one of his finer pieces of work.He was a famous colonial architect and was very inspired by India - a lot of his buildings have this wonderful oriental flourish that you never quite get in the UK. They have a real romance and poetry about them."

Despite running its own film festival, Zanzibar currently has no working cinemas, and Tanzania, which once had 53 film houses, now has only two. Broomfield said that although the Majestic had lost much of its sparkle, it was still used by the locals to watch films.

"They use it every night, even though the roof leaks. It's all a bit tumbledown but they still take their projectors and their chairs and show films. It's a bit of a social hang out," he said.

"At the same time there is a real East African film community out there who are very active within the Zanzibar International Film Festival, all of whom could do with using the building.

"The problem now is that there is very little money in Zanzibar, so we're really hoping to generate some interest in order to raise some funds."

The estimated cost of the restoration project is around 300,000, and Broomfield said he hopes to attract interest from Scotland, given the building's heritage.

"It would be great if some architects in Scotland got involved in the project. Zanzibar is such a magical place and it would be a wonderful and romantic project for a young Scottish architect to get involved with."

Martin Mhando, director of the Zanzibar International Film Festival, said he would love to see the cinema restored to its former glory.

"It would be great to see the Majestic used as a cinema but more than that I think it can be used for students studying in Zanzibar as a facility for education.

"We need to get someone to look at it to see what can be restored and what cannot be, and what would work for the future.

"I don't want people to see it just as a historical relic but something that can be useful for the people of Zanzibar for today and tomorrow."

Little is known of Sinclair's early life in Scotland although it is believed he originated from Edinburgh. He was born in 1871 and his wife, Muriel, was the daughter of a colonel in the Black Watch who served in India.

After a brief stint as a junior diplomat in Tangiers, he moved to Zanzibar in 1896 in the wake of the British bombardment that resulted in the island becoming a UK protectorate.

He worked his way through the diplomatic corps, starting out as a young administrator and rising to become British Resident - the equivalent of the British Ambassador at the time - between 1922 and 1924. His appointment as vice-consul for Zanzibar in 1899 was reported in the Edinburgh Gazette.

He designed a number of Zanzibar's landmark buildings, including the high court, the Peace Memorial Museum and the post office. He also built a cathedral in Mombasa, Kenya, and a church on the Tanzanian island of Pemba. He was awarded a CBE and died in 1961.

A personal memoir of his time in Zanzibar is kept in the Royal Commonwealth Society Library at Cambridge University.

Neil Baxter, secretary of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, said he approved of the project.

"There has long been a tradition of Scottish architects who have gone away from here and exported their talents, whether they were remaining in the UK and working abroad or actually travelling abroad to work on project," he said.

"Sinclair was far from alone in creating architecture in far- flung places and he certainly won't be the last to do so."

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