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The missing Rovira cinema in Barcelona, located at 110 Torrente de las Flores street, corner of Providencia, had its main façade facing Plaza Rovira. It was owned by Francesc Benages.
The cinema was inaugurated for the first time in 1909, without having carried out the necessary mandatory reviews by municipal technicians regarding its correct construction. These deficiencies observed at first glance by the neighborhood made it known in the neighborhood for its appearance as "the Barraca."
The reviews carried out later by the technicians meant that, when a series of serious irregularities were observed, they advised closing it to avoid great risks of the roof collapsing, among other things, until they were resolved.
A palpable proof of the deficiencies is that it took nearly two years for them to be resolved and it could not be reopened, with a capacity of 500 spectators, until March 3, 1911. Its irregular programming made it appear and disappear from the billboards continuously.
After a prolonged silence, he appeared on Saturday, February 22, 1913, programming Three Gentlemen for a Young Lady, The Colonel's Peril, The Evildoer's Repentance, and the premiere of The Golden Goal Race, a 1,100-meter Gaumont film. .
On Sunday, April 5, 1925, it appeared in a collective advertisement in which the Avisador Guardián company announced that the Rovira cinema was one of the cinemas that had installed the fire alarm in its premises.
On Saturday, December 26, 1931, with the Republic consolidated, a meeting of the Youth of the Liberal Republican Right of Catalonia was held, in which Messrs. Múrio and Sanahuja intervened on behalf of the Youth.
The next day, the Liberal Republican League held its propaganda meeting for the D.L.R. of Catalonia in which Bosch, Murió, Sanahuja, Lligé and Pérez Tornel spoke, who advocated for the political renewal of Catalonia and the lack of sense of responsibility of the politicians of the Catalan Left.
In 1932, after some reforms to correct the defects found by the last municipal inspection, it became part of the Delicias company, programming the same together with the cinemas: Mundial, Select, Arnau, Delicias, Frégoli, Trianón and Bailén.
On Sunday, April 19, 1936, he appeared again in a corporate advertisement for 20th Century Fox, in which he announced the screening of The Millionaire Cowboy, Satan's Ship, and Travel Companions for Monday next to the cinemas. Delights and Dance.
With the start of the civil war, like all entertainment venues, it was collectivized by the CNT/FAI union, programming and offering revival film rallies.
During the time of the dictatorship it remained in the position of a revival venue. The multiplexes that monopolized everything, even the spectators, had not yet appeared.
The week of October 12 to 18, 1959, it screened one of those films that drew spectators to the locals due to its romantic air, Sissi's Destiny, complemented by the film Travesía del Desierto, a type of intelligent programming by its programmer. A romantic film and another action film, a possibility that married couples and couples would not refuse to watch the selected program, if we check their programming since the 40s, they tried to keep both sexes happy in their programming.
The Rovira cinema had a literary complement appearing in the novels of Juan Marsé. When Fernando Trueba, director of the film The Haunting of Shanghai, verified that the façade of the Rovira cinema appeared in the novel, he found that it had already been demolished. For his filming, he used the Verdi, close to the Rovira, to set up a fictitious façade and thus be able to film the exterior scenes of the cinema. The film was played by Ariadna Gil, Fernando Fernán Gómez, Eduard Fernández and Jorge Sanz. In the 17th edition of the Goya Awards, it won three of the prizes awarded to Salvador Parra for Best Artistic Direction; Lala Huete, Best Costume Design; and Gregorio Ros, Pepito Judge, for Best Makeup and Hairstyling.
In the TVE series One day I will return, sequences from the cinema also appeared. And Luis Eduardo Aute, who had lived in the Gracia neighborhood for a time, recorded the song Somnis de la Plaça Rovira (Dreams of Plaza Rovira), in which a verse dedicated to cinema appears.
Like all neighborhood cinemas, the Rovira disappeared from the city in the wings of modernity. In the past, people wanted to have things at their fingertips. Today we are not happy if we do not take any vehicle to travel far from where we live, to show that we are leaving home. The Rovira cinema closed its doors in 1965.
