ECUEILLE, France (AFP) — On a chilly winter morning, the hissing sound of air brakes announces the arrival of an oddly out-sized juggernaut in the main square of Ecueille, a small village in central France.
In less than an hour the truck is almost unrecognisable, converted into a "cinemobile", a fully functioning 100-seat cinema complete with ticket office, projector, screen and a state-of-the-art sound system.
"The sides of the truck can be opened out with hydraulic jacks to make a comfortable, air conditioned, heated cinema with a screen that measures 10 square metres and offers top quality sound," said Philippe Leroy, a one-man-band who drives the truck, sets up the cinema, sells the tickets, screens the films and cleans up the empty popcorn cartons afterwards.
It is one of three mobile cinemas that have been touring almost continually around France's central region for over 20 years.
Named after three of French cinema's all-time giants -- actor Yves Montand, director Jacques Tati, and actor and screenwriter Jean Carmet -- the trucks offer a monthly shot of celluloid pleasure to the inhabitants of 46 rural communities, stopping off in each once a month.
"I'm here every month. Without the truck I wouldn't go to the cinema that often," said 13-year-old Jean-Charles as he queued up for a ticket for the latest blockbuster.
"I really don't feel like making an 80-kilometre (50 miles) round trip to Chateauroux," adds a grandmother, referring to the nearest major town. "Here it's much more practical."
The service is run by a a state-backed organisation called Centre Images.
"These cinemas play an important social role in the villages. They are places where people can meet up, have a chat with their friends. They are not anonymous like the multiplexes you can find in town," said Francois Hardy, who works for the organisation.
Hardy says he often tries to organise debates along with the film. In 2007 for example, screenings of "An Inconvenient Truth", Nobel Prize winner Al Gore's documentary about climate change, were regularly followed by debates with some of France's leading experts on global warming.
"You can't expect the customers to come to you if you don't make an effort. I see it as my job to organise events that people can really get involved in," says Hardy. It's a strategy that seems to be working. In 2007, the number of people visiting the cinemobiles was up by around 20,000 to nearly 60,000.
The cinemobiles were made by a local firm called 'toutenkamion', based in the central French town of Ladon, which also makes mobile cinemas for other countries. Two of its customised trucks are currently touring the roads of rural Ireland and another plies its trade in far flung corners of Scotland. The company has also supplied a mobile cinema for the British army, which has used it to entertain troops stationed in Kosovo and Iraq.
And mobile cinemas are not just bringing the magic of film to isolated communities in Europe.
Thanks to the arrival of digital technologies including Digital Video Discs (DVDs) and lightweight video projectors, isolated communities in many parts of Africa are now getting what for many people is their first ever taste of cinema.
Since the summer of 2001 an organisation called Travelling Digital Cinema (generally known by its French acronym CNA) has been organising screenings in far flung corners of Mali, Niger, Benin and Burkina Faso.
"It's all thanks to digital," explains CNA founder Christian Lambert, "you can put 40 feature films in a small suitcase and the equipment only weighs three kilos (seven pounds). Digital has lightened up the movies."
Lambert says he decided to set up CNA when he was working on the production for a couple of films being shot in Africa.
"I realised the people we were working with would never see the films," he says.
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