What it means
سینما (sinamâ) means cinema or movie theater: the place where films are shown, and by extension the art form of filmmaking itself. The word is borrowed directly from the French cinema, short for cinematographe, the name the Lumiere brothers gave their projection device. Persian adopted the French pronunciation closely, and سینما became the standard term for both the building and the medium. In informal speech you might hear فیلم (film) used for the art and سینما specifically for the venue, though both senses overlap in practice.
How to use it
- امشب میریم سینما؟ (emshab mirim sinamâ?) “Are we going to the cinema tonight?”
- سینمای ایران جهانی شده. (sinamâ-ye irân jahâni shode.) “Iranian cinema has become international.”
- بهترین سینمای شهر کجاست؟ (behtarin sinamâ-ye shahr kojâst?) “Where is the best cinema in the city?”
- فیلم جدید توی همه سینماهاست. (film-e jadid tu-ye hame sinamâhâst.) “The new film is in all the cinemas.”
Cultural note
The first public movie theater in Tehran opened in 1904, when Mirza Ebrahim Khan Sahhafbashi screened films in the backyard of his antique shop on Cheragh Gaz Avenue, just nine years after the Lumieres introduced the cinematographe to Europe. سینما has been embedded in Persian urban life ever since. Iranian cinema gained global recognition through directors such as Abbas Kiarostami, Majid Majidi, and Asghar Farhadi, whose films have won awards at Cannes and the Academy Awards. The word سینما therefore carries both the everyday meaning of a neighborhood movie house and the weight of a serious national art form.