Movie light may soon return to Fuse, Higashiosaka. Kujira Co., Ltd., which runs SEKAI HOTEL Osaka Fuse — a “town-wide hotel” spread across the shopping street in front of Fuse Station — has teamed up with DOMA CINEMA, a theater-café in Joto-ku, Osaka, to launch a project to bring a cinema back to Fuse. The first step is a screening inside the Fuse shopping street in spring 2027.
Titles, dates and how to take part will be announced on the SEKAI HOTEL website and social media as soon as they are decided.
Thirteen cinemas in 1955: Fuse was a movie town
Fuse used to be packed with movie theaters. According to records, the then city of Fuse had 13 of them in 1955. One descendant of that era, Fuse Line Cinema — which carried on from the Shoeiza theater that opened in 1933 — closed in February 2020 after 87 years. Since then, there has been no cinema in Higashiosaka.
When hotel staff talk with people on the shopping street, they often hear, “I wish Fuse had a cinema again.” Fuse is not alone: 1,413 of Japan’s 1,719 municipalities (82%) have no cinema, rising to 95% among those with fewer than 50,000 residents. At the same time, small cinemas of 10 to 50 seats have been opening in various places.
It began with a renovation
DOMA CINEMA is a 10-seat theater-café that opened in 2024. Director Naofumi Yoshida and his wife renovated a house of more than 50 years that came to them from relatives, turning the earthen-floor entrance on the ground floor (doma) into a place to watch films. Kujira designed and built the renovation, and had known Mr. Yoshida since.
While talking about the future of the Fuse shopping street, Kujira suggested bringing a cinema back. Mr. Yoshida replied that the sadness of disappearing cinemas can be seen all over Japan, and they agreed to shape the Fuse effort so it could be taken to other towns without a cinema. Koichi Yano, Kujira’s CEO, says that as SEKAI HOTEL, which invites guests to “dive into the everyday life of the places they travel to,” he wants local people to feel again that a cinema is part of daily life.
After the film, “café time” to talk
The project has three parts.
- Starting with a screening: in spring 2027, a screening selected by DOMA CINEMA will be held inside the shopping street
- Time to talk after the film: “café time,” which DOMA CINEMA has long valued, lets the audience share their thoughts and will be adopted as a place where locals and travelers meet
- On to other towns: combined with “SEKAI HOTEL on tour,” which takes SEKAI HOTEL’s know-how of putting a town’s appeal into words and re-editing it to other regions, the project aims to spread a way of creating screening spaces in towns without a cinema, based on the Fuse experience
According to Mr. Yoshida, it is not unusual at DOMA CINEMA for strangers to start chatting with “That scene was great, wasn’t it?” It will be interesting to see which films the theater, which mainly shows independent and arthouse works from Japan and abroad, picks for a shopping street.
Event details
- When: spring 2027 (planned)
- Venue: inside the Fuse shopping street (Higashiosaka, Osaka)
- Program: screening selected by DOMA CINEMA, plus café time
- Details: to be announced on the SEKAI HOTEL website and social media once decided
- SEKAI HOTEL website: https://www.sekaihotel.jp/
- DOMA CINEMA (4-4-37 Imafuku-nishi, Joto-ku, Osaka): https://www.domacinema.com/
