By Forty people attending a paid screening of the Oscar-nominated movie “The Holdovers” in the Brazillian city of Rio de Janeiro found themselves locked in recently.
Attendees of the film assembled in the lobby after they realized the theater’s staff had turned off the lights, locked the doors from the outside and had gone home for the night.
According to O Globo (via The Wrap), the first sign something was wrong was that the lights didn’t come up after the end credits ran. They made their way to the lobby where they saw that the theater’s exterior security gate had already been closed.
The audience was trapped for about 30 minutes before being freed after they called the fire department. Adriana Rattes, a founding partner
Adriana Rattes, a founding partner of Brazilian exhibitor Grupo Estação, says the employee oversight was “unprecedented” and “surreal”, saying:
“After 40 years in business, if we had done this more than once, we wouldn’t be working now. We’ve been digesting the matter all week. Imagine if these people had spent the night inside? I have nightmares just thinking about it.”
The employees who locked the theater early have been ‘temporarily removed’.
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