Cinema of Cuba - Early Stages

Early Stages

After being popularised by the brothers Louis Jean and Auguste Marie Lumière, the cinematographe traveled through several capital cities in different American countries before arriving in Havana, which occurred on January 24, 1897. It was brought from Mexico by Gabriel Veyre. The first presentation was offered at Paseo del Prado #126, just aside the Teatro Tacón, today called Gran Teatro de La Habana. Four short films were shown: Partida de cartas, El tren, El regador y el muchacho y El sombrero cómico. The tickets were sold at a price of 50 cents, and 20 cents for kids and the military. Short after, Veyre performed a leading role in the first film produced in the island, Simulacro de incendio, a documentary centered around firemen in Havana.

In this first phase of introduction there were several locations devoted to cinema: Panorama Soler, Salón de variedades o ilusiones ópticas, Paseo del Prado #118, Vitascopio de Edison (in the famous Louvre sidewalk). The Teatro Irioja (today Teatro Martí) was the first to present cinema as one of its attractions. The first in a long list of movie theatres in Havana was set by José A. Casasús, actor, producer and entrepreneur, under the name of "Floradora", later renamed "Alaska".

In the six or seven years before World War I, cinema gets expanded and stabilized as a business in the most important cities in Latin America. Cuba, just as the rest of the countries in the continent, went through those first years with itinerant and sporadic exhibitions, changing from European providers to North American providers, starting the dependency on the big Hollywood companies.

The first ambitious genre in the continent was probably historic reviews. In Cuba films like El Capitán Mambí y Libertadores o guerrilleros (1914), de Enríque Díaz Quesada with support from the general Mario García Menocal are worth mentioning. Díaz Quesada adapted from the Spanish novelist Joaquín Dicenta in 1910, as a tendency widely used then, of using literary works adapted for movies, as well as imitating Chaplin, the French comedies and cowboys adventure films. The silent stage of production was extended until 1937, when the first full-length fiction movie was produced.