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Johannesburg is only seven years younger than the movies. Gold was discovered on the reef in 1886 and within a decade the area changed from tent town to wood and iron shacks, then in a flash to bricks and mortar. Across the world in New Jersey, Thomas Edison constructed the Black Maria in 1893 the world�s first ever film production studio. Three years later the Edison Vitascope unveiled a program of 12 short film subjects, including �The Edison Kinetoscope Record of a Sneeze�, as supporting entertainment at a New York Music Hall.
It was only natural that the globe�s newest boomtown would be one of the first to experience the wonder of mankind�s latest entertainment and art form. The first presentation of film in South Africa was made on May 9th 1896, a few months after the Manhattan presentation, at the Empire Palace of Varieties in Johannesburg�s Commissioner Street. In the same year the first South African film was produced consisting of scenes shot from the front of a tram in the bustling city of gold.
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