02/01/2024 – 16:20
Last Saturday, the 27th, after the screening of the last screening of the night of the Oscar-nominated film The Rejected, 40 patrons of a traditional cinema in Botafogo, Estação Net, found themselves locked behind bars. They screamed for help to neighboring establishments and were 'rescued' by employees from another cinema in the same chain, which is close to the location. One of the victims, professor Marcelo Alonso Morais, made a video during the incident, check it out:
In the video, Marcelo reports, while showing the closed exit grille: “It's 20 minutes to midnight, we're all here at the Estação Net Botafogo cinema, we're stuck here, we came to watch Os Rejectados, and the cinema employees simply left and locked everyone away. those who were watching The Rejected at the cinema. There is a group here inside the cinema, this is absurd. We are locked in, calling the police and the Fire Department, because the Estação Net group locked everyone here inside the cinema, and we can’t get out.”
The victims say, in an interview with the newspaper The globe, that the first sign that “something was wrong” was the fact that the lights did not come on after the end of the session, but that the shock really came when seeing the metal bars blocking the entrance. The customers, who were at the Estação Net Rio Unit, were released by employees from the neighboring unit, Estação Net Botafogo, after being locked by employees in the place where they were. Retiree Ruth Kauffmann, 70 years old, reported that everyone stayed there for about half an hour and that they called the police and firefighters.
She explained the situation to customers at a bar in front of the cinema, and quipped: “At that moment, we just wanted freedom. We didn't know how to proceed. It was as if we were orphans there. Look, what a drama, right? We were left without action, desperate. We had just watched the movie The Rejected. And we feel like this: rejected.”
Coincidentally, the Oscar-nominated film The Rejected portrays the story of a group of “forgotten” students at a school during the end of year festivities.
Estação Net said, through Adriana Rattes, founding partner of the group: “It was terrible, and no one imagined that this could happen. After 40 years in business, if we had done this more than once, we wouldn't be in business now. We've been digesting the matter all week. Imagine if people had spent the night inside? I have nightmares just thinking about it,” she reported to O Globo.
Adriana ends by apologizing and promising compensation for what happened to the victims, in addition to signaling that the employees were temporarily laid off. “We want to show that, yes, we are very concerned about what happened, upset.”
*Intern under the supervision of Charlise de Morais.
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