On Friday 27 In November, the Aragón Cinemas reopened their doors in Valencia. Nine years after closure, a group of people set up a cooperative, The Cinematist, putting your hope in it, your work and, above all, his love for cinema. With this they wanted to open a new model of rooms. They explain it to us.
everyone closes, you open doors, what did they tell you at home when you said: I'm going to open a cinema?
Precisely for that reason, Because so many have closed, there has been a gap in the number of people who would go to the cinemas more if it weren't, a, because the billboard is very homogeneous and two, for the prices. So we believe that there is an audience for these cinemas that are going to be re-release cinemas in V.. O., also with dubbed sessions. We are going to work with very reasonable prices, of 3, 50 a 5€. Our idea is to re-release things that we believe have gone unnoticed to give them a second chance..
This has been closed for nine years.. What have you had to do to recover this space??
Well, a lot had to be done and in many areas.: fountain, electricity, air conditioners, carpentry, paint, cleaning… We have made an adapted bathroom because these cinemas did not have it. We have been working since June every day, eight people, ten hours, with professionals, Of course, because we couldn't reach everything.
You are going to put auteur cinema, more than commercial cinema. From what I see, you go against the current in everything: you are committed to opening a cinema when others close, you are betting on auteur cinema now that they say no one sees it. (laughter)
No, but that's why. Look, I think there is an error there.. There is a problem when it is said that what is commercial is not author and that what is author is not commercial. We believe, and in that we are convinced, that there is an auteur cinema that is commercial. And we also know that there is a lot of cinema that does not come to this city. There is a wealth of small films that do not have distribution but that for us are of quality. Our idea is that the Aragó Cinema becomes a place where people come without seeing the billboard. También que no sea solo un espacio para proyectar películas: let directors come, actors, people from the university and audiovisual media.
Have you already thought about some things in this sense...
(they had just presented B, by David Ilundain) Yeah, We are going to premiere a Colombian film that has not been premiered in Valencia that won last year's Locarno festival, (The Fungi by Oscar Ruíz Navía), let's go too The fighters (by Thomas Cailley) which ran for two weeks this summer and we think it's a very interesting film. Let's do morning sessions for children. Let's do marathons. We are not going to refuse to screen series, historical series, The sopranos, For example, to see it on the big screen. Are, besides, a cinema without popcorn. Good though, we are going to have a cafeteria, but we think that to feed people we don't have to give them corn. We are going to do so many things (laughter).
Long live the new Aragón cinemas. aragocinema.com G.LEÓN
