THE Louxor Palais du Cinema, north-west of the Gare du Nord in Paris, was once one of the jewels of Egyptian-inspired art deco. It opened in 1921 boasting pillars, papyrus motifs and pharaohs’ heads—to say nothing of a hall seating almost 1,200 film-goers. It was the heyday of silent films of the sort that “The Artist” recently brought back to life. Parisians thronged to the Louxor, cigarettes in hand, to see the hair-gelled heart-throbs and hear the live orchestra that accompanied them. A decade later, as the talkies were taking over, the Pathé group bought the Louxor. They brought in bodice-rippers and American films, eventually replacing the neo-Egyptian décor with neo-Greek. After the second world war the cinema fell on hard times, as did its neighbourhood. Heavy immigration, mostly from the Maghreb and then sub-Saharan Africa, began to change the character of the “carrefour Barbès”, where three central arrondissements touch—the 9th, 10th and 18th. It became overcrowded and crime-ridden. By the 1970s the Louxor was showing Indian and Arab films, often in their original languages. A man who worked there recalls that what went on in the public lavatories was more interesting than the spectacles on screen. Instead of watching the films people were selling all sorts of things, women in particular.

The Louxor screened its last film in 1983 before Pathé sold the building to a retail firm which wanted to build a store. But the firm’s plan did not prosper because the Louxor’s exotic façade had been listed for preservation. The place briefly became an Antilles disco and then the biggest gay club in Paris. From 1987 the building stood empty.

Two citizens’ groups were formed in 2001; one wanting to regenerate the Louxor, the other aiming to raise the tone of Barbès. They made their point. Paris City Hall soon bought the site and Philippe Pumain, an architect who knows his way around theatres, was appointed to restore the Louxor to its original function. The authorities gave permission for work to begin in 2010. Three years and €25m ($33m) later, the Louxor re-opened on April 18th, with “Grandmaster”, a Chinese martial-arts film, as its first offering.

The building is stunning. The main theatre, with space now for around 340 spectators, is a richly decorated triumph of gold-tinted walls, painted hieroglyphs, floral motifs and friezes, and an art-deco skylight. In the bowels of the building are two smaller theatres. Films from the developing world will make up much of the fare, which, it is hoped, will appeal to local residents. There is also a strong educational push as well as a desire to facilitate “community dialogue”. The Louxor will offer courses on film, and devise schemes to entice local residents through its doors, especially the young. The intention behind a project which has cost a lot of money at a time when cash is short is as much social as artistic, according to Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor of Paris. Just as a number of clapped-out cities in Britain pinned their hopes on new museums to help regenerate a dead industrial heart, so Parisians believe in the redemptive power of cinema. That is hardly surprising. As the chart below shows, using data from IHS Screen Digest, the French are keen film-goers, beating Britons, Germans and Italians hands down. And Parisians are almost twice as likely to go to the pictures as people outside the capital, according to the Centre National de Cinéma, a government agency. Like the cinema industry everywhere, France’s has been hit by the increased popularity of watching films at home or on mobile devices. Despite this, the number of screens in Paris has risen from 369 in 1999 to what is likely to be 431 in 2015.