* The author is part of the community of readers of La Vanguardia
The history of the Oriente cinema (later, Rome; and, finally, Cinema The businessman Enrique Matas Ramis decided to build the primitive Oriente cinema.
It was located on an Aragón street where the trains leaving the North and France stations were still circulating inside an open ditch in the middle of the track and which, as they passed through it, left behind smoke and carbon. of the old steam engines.
The cinema, without great architectural or decorative pretensions, had something that in summer caught the attention of the spectators who entered the premises for the first time and that left them perplexed, when they saw that, at the beginning of the night session, the ceiling of the room It began to open using a mechanism, which allowed the film to be enjoyed in the light of the stars.
It was inaugurated on February 8, 1940, appearing on the billboard of La Vanguardia, in an edition of only 8 pages. The next day, the city’s newspapers commented on the opening of the new cinema.
It was one of the re-release theaters on the left of Ensanche, which almost never stood out for programming that stood out from other cinemas, except during Holy Week in 1963, when it screened the film of The Ten Commandments along with other cinemas in the city.
This public success means that its owners carried out a renovation and washing of the face of the place, which opened on Resurrection Sunday, April 18, 1965, completely renovated.
For its opening they looked for a blockbuster, Cleopatra, with an extraordinary cast of actors: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Roddy McDowall, Martin Landau, Pamela Brown, George Cole, Hume Cronyn, Cesare Danova, Kenneth Haigh, Robert Stephens and Margaret Read.
After the covering of the railway and the urbanization of Aragón Street, the owners of the Oriente cinema decided to carry out a comprehensive remodeling of the old cinema, converting the old premises into a modern theater in the city center. They renovated both the façade and the interior decoration, including the seats and projection equipment.
Thus was born the new Rome cinema that came to replace the old Oriente cinema. It was inaugurated on Tuesday, July 13, 1976, when, taking advantage of the change of image, it also changed its name, acquiring the same name as the avenue that deviated from Aragón street to Sants station.
The film chosen for the occasion was La Raulito, an Argentine film directed by Lautaro Murua played by Marilina Ross, which showed a girl who spent most of her life in prison for loving freedom.
In March 1981 an Italian cinema program was made and the film Rome, directed by Roberto Rossellini, was rescheduled.
The new times were changing cinematographic perspectives. The appearance of multiplexes in large stores and the appearance of video stores kept viewers away from the cinemas in the city center.
This drop in spectators in cinemas was endured by some owners thanks to the arrival of democracy and the ability to have one of the X Cinemas in the city with films for adults.
This measles also affected the owners of the Roma cinema, who converted it into Cinema