Cinema According to Chico

Among the many interviews recorded for Piracicaba Never Forgot, speaking with Chico Andia was, without doubt, one of the most striking. Not only because of what he represented for cinema in Piracicaba, as exhibitor, builder, manager and enthusiast, but because of the way he lived cinema: with precision, exacting standards, and a devotion bordering on the sacred. Sitting with Chico was like stepping into a projection booth with the lights on. Nothing there was left to chance. Every technical detail of the cinema spaces, the sound, the light, the architecture, the changes in audience habits, he remembered. And he did not merely remember: he felt. He spoke with the conviction of someone who had spent nights sleeping on the floor of the projection booth to perfect the sound quality of a cinema, as he once did at Cine Colonial, his first theatre.

It was moving to hear him describe how his relationship with cinema began when he was still a boy, watching serials at Cine São José, building wooden projectors with his own hands, renting 16mm films to screen at home. It was a connection that went far beyond entertainment, it was a vocation. Perhaps that is why the cinema he built, Cine Plaza, was described by him as “first-class”, and with such pride. It was his dream made concrete. And also his greatest loss. The Plaza building collapsed, taking with it lives and memories. Chico survived, escaping through a side corridor. To see his eyes carry the weight of that tragedy, and yet still speak of it with such lucidity, was one of those moments that cannot be contained on camera. There, between pain and resilience, I understood that cinema is not only what is projected on the screen, but also what is lived beyond it.

With Chico, I also came to understand that cinemas are much more than physical spaces. He spoke about architecture, about the elegant façades of street cinemas, about the glamour of Cine Broadway, about his reverence for perfect sound, and his sorrow at seeing cinemas turned into shops or churches. “Cinema was status,” he said. I heard those words as a lament, but also as a reminder: once, cinema was the heart of a city’s cultural life. Even after decades of intense work in exhibition, Chico no longer goes to the cinema. He prefers the silence and sound control of his own home. He told me that today’s cinemas no longer offer the immersive experience they once did. As someone who lived cinema so deeply, he has become at once its greatest critic and its greatest defender. And it is beautiful to see that this love still pulses, even if in another form.

In our conversation, he also recalled Cine Arte, an initiative born from a group of enthusiasts, with its theatre named in homage to Grande Otelo. He recounted with pride how Otelo, though unwell, left hospital to be present at its inauguration. There is something poetic in that: a cinema created out of passion, inaugurated by a symbol of Brazilian art, only to be destroyed years later by a flood. So much beauty and so much fragility held within a single gesture. During the interview, amidst so many facts and memories, what touched me most was the almost physical affection he held for the theatres. To speak of them was like speaking of children. He knew where the wires were, the projectors, the flaws and the wonders. He knew the smell, the temperature, the acoustics. He was technical, yes. But he was also pure emotion.

Ending that conversation left me with a lump in my throat and a notebook full. But more than the notes, I carried with me the feeling that I had spoken to someone who did not merely live history , he built it. Chico is part of what Piracicaba Never Forgot seeks to preserve. A pillar. A cinema hall in human form.

And for that, I can only give thanks.

— Dara Oliver