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By Mercedes Santos Moray
 More
than a year has passed, only, after the irruption of the seventh
art in Paris, thanks to Lumiere Brothers, when first cinema exhibition
in Cuba happened.
As historician
Raúl Rodríguez narrates, in the morning of Friday,
January 15, 1897, French Gabriel Veyre, desembarked at Havana Port
in the middle of a severe tropical winter, coming from México,
Veracruz.
Gabriel made
his first exhibitions at a small, long and strait room in 216, Prado
St. % San Rafael and San José where the ancient theater Tacón
was placed, being nowadays the famous Federico García Lorca
Theater.
On Saturday
23, exhibition was for a group of chronists and journalists of major
diaries of the capital, at that time colony of Hispanic Crown, including
projection of Procession a Cuirassiers Squadron (Desfile
de un escuadron de coraceros), Storm in the Sea (La
tempestad en el mar), Railway Running (El Ferrocarril
en Marcha), Sun Door in Madrid (La Puerta del Sol
de Madrid) and Visit of the last Russian Zar, Nicolás
Romanoff to Paris (Visita del último Zar de Rusia,
Nicolás Romanoff, a París).
In the afternoon
of Sunday, January 24, started really cinematographic exhibitions
in Cuba for the general public, having functions from 6:30 until
11:30 pm. Entrances were of fifty cents for adults and twenty cents
for children and Spanish army.
In that occassion,
short films were presented: Card Players (Jugadores de Carta),
The Train (El Tren), The Irrigator and the Boy (El regador y el
Muchacho), The Comedian Hat (El Sombrero Cómico), Babies
(Los Bebés), Mountain Artillery (Artilleria de Montaña),
Troop Dancing (Baile de Tropa), Negroes taking a Bath (Unos negros
bañándose) among others films made in Spain and
France.
The emissary
of Lumiere House, Gabriel Veyre, used a sheet sprinkled with water
at the beggining of functions as screen and with a hidden projector.
Fifteen days
after, Saturday, February 7, 1897, during the morning took place
the first film production in the island: a short film of only a
minute of duration, Simulation of Fire (Simulacro de Incendio),
having direction, photography and lab work in charge of Gabriel
Veyre himself and the participation, as actors, some members of
Central Station of Fireman of Commerce in Havana.
Text
courtesy of Trabajadores
newspaper.
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