The trailer is 6 meters long, painted in turquoise, and the trailer goes through Spain, Head to the hilltop village, cobblestone square, and medieval historical center. Regardless of the location, the whole process starts in the same way: a huge screen is opened.
“Our motto is movies for everyone and everywhere,” said one of the co-founders, Patricia de Luna. La Barraca de Cine, A mobile cinema, has entered dozens of villages in Spain in the past year. “Those nights of watching movies with family and friends, and sharing experiences with people around them-this is the magic we want to create.”
This is a cinematic interpretation of an effort initiated by the Spanish poet nearly a century ago Federico Garcia LorcaIn the early 1930s, Lorca initiated a project with writer and film director Eduardo Ugarte to bring classical theater to villages across Spain.
The project was named La Barraca, referring to the temporary wooden stalls set up in the open-air market. “Lorca is made with theater, we make it with movies,” De Luna said. They also have a bar at home.
La Barraca de Cine was officially launched in 2020, only 15 days after the coronavirus pandemic put Spain in trouble One of the strictest lockdown measures in Europe. A few months later, as confinement gave way to tepid socialization, the project began to crisscross Spain, showing everything from history and family movies to recordings of the opera “La Traviata” Playing at the Royal Theater of Madrid.
“When we are confined at home, we no longer share our daily lives,” Druner said. “This is a way of sharing, going out, and talking again.”
This move comes as cinemas in Spain and around the world are struggling to cope with the impact of the pandemic and resist a serious crisis that has led to the closure of many cinemas. Barraca de Cine is open to any village. There is only one rule. It cannot already have a cinema.
“We are not here to compete with movie theaters,” De Luna said. “We want the movie to touch everyone.”
Each screening is hosted by at least one emcee, who tells the film anecdotes about the character, director, or how the film was accepted. “We try to present it in a way that is not cold to the audience,” De Luna said.
With funding from the Spanish Ministry of Culture, La Barraca de Cine relies on the village committee to hire them. After signing the contract, they worked with local officials to discuss which movie to show and how to best tailor the experience for the village. Last year, they visited 40 villages; so far this year, they have reached 45.
Iratxe Quintana, another co-founder of La Barraca de Cine, said that the key to the project is to believe that entering the cinema is a right. “It’s not just a question of enjoying a good time, it’s part of it, but the movie is also something that shapes us and creates opportunities.”
Driven by this view, the project emphasizes accessibility. Working with a university in Madrid, the experience includes an app that provides subtitles and descriptive videos for people who are deaf or blind.
This is a tribute to how Lorca used culture to solve isolation problems. “At that time, the villages were more isolated because they didn’t have the Internet or TV,” Quintana said.
Today, many Spanish villages Avoid stable hollowing In their population, the mission has changed slightly. “It’s about revitalizing the social and cultural life of the village,” Quintana said. “But the spirit is the same: try to make the world a little better.”
