Origin of Letter to the Censors I had this idea to do something with cinema – I think probably … all my life because I have this relation with films – all my childhood I’ve been a big fan of cinema, and my father and my brother – we are very into films. [Cut] I remember the moment of arriving and looking at the cinema in Havana. I was there – very far in an area of Havana … and we saw this cinema that is not in the photograph of the Tate [and] I actually have to shoot one moment because it is fantastic, it is called the Cinema Principal, it is in one municipality of Havana, very far from the centre. And it was so incredible – still. It is very decayed – but the iron work and the façade ... everything was very fantastic and that was the moment that I realised that I should build a cinema and find the abandoned cinemas. I don’t know … there’s a lot of history about the cinemas in Havana … how we’ve been suffering for the last 15 years … when they started to cut all the money and the Soviet [union collapsed] ... we start to suffer this situation as well because the cinemas started to close. |