As a monumental book published by SKIRA in 2017, artist Carolina Sandretto made the portraits of the more than 300 cinemas she found over the course of four years travelling around Cuba. In 1958, with more than 130 halls in Havana and a total of 511, Cuba counted more cinemas in its capital than New York and Paris. During the last 50 years, these buildings, once the heart of an entertainment consumed as a community, have been transformed or abandoned. Today only 19 halls are still used as a cinema in all Cuba. Some are now theaters, some host local dance groups but the majority are left to a slow and inexorable decay. Cines de Cuba is a voyage around the island, during which Carolina Sandretto depicted the actual state of the cinemas. These photographs remind us of how we all used to live as a community and how much our society has changed towards individualism from its original collective nature.

As a monumental book published by SKIRA in 2017, artist Carolina Sandretto made the portraits of the more than 300 cinemas she found over the course of four years travelling around Cuba. In 1958, with more than 130 halls in Havana and a total of 511, Cuba counted more cinemas in its capital than New York and Paris. During the last 50 years, these buildings, once the heart of an entertainment consumed as a community, have been transformed or abandoned. Today only 19 halls are still used as a cinema in all Cuba. Some are now theaters, some host local dance groups but the majority are left to a slow and inexorable decay. Cines de Cuba is a voyage around the island, during which Carolina Sandretto depicted the actual state of the cinemas. These photographs remind us of how we all used to live as a community and how much our society has changed towards individualism from its original collective nature.