Flirting at the cinema door

Reflections on the interviews conducted for my project Piracicaba Never Forgotten.

Interviewing Tita was like opening a box of delicate memories, the kind you keep carefully in a corner of your heart. Tita, or Maria Conceição Andia de Vilhena Moraes, welcomed me with welcoming generosity, and with her came a whole era, full of flowing dresses, dressing tables in front of the mirror, queues of girls passing in front of the cinema and boys watching in silence, flirting, as they said at the time. Right at the start of the interview, she told me about the film she made with her brother when she was still a teenager. "I was the lead actress," she said, with the delighted laughter of someone who fondly remembers the scene in front of the dressing table. That memory, simple and intimate, already set the tone for everything that would come later: for her, the cinema wasn't just a show, it was conviviality, it was affection, it was the place of imagination and life.

Talking about Piracicaba's theatres, Tita plunged into the days of the Broadway, the Polytheama, the Colonial and the Palácio/Rivoli. That's where she lived in her youth. Going to the cinema wasn't just about watching a film. It meant going out, dressing up, meeting friends, perhaps a future love. She told me about her boyfriend who ran to borrow a long-sleeved shirt just so he could get into the cinema and see her. And of the vanity with which she prepared herself for those evenings, skirts swirled, hair done, a care that was not only aesthetic, but also ritualistic. Every trip to the cinema was a small celebration. Tita talked about the encounters, the first flings, the conversations, the Mazzaropi films and the flirtatious Sundays. Everything was lived with intensity, even if it seemed simple. And that simplicity carried a kind of beauty that we sometimes forget today. The cinema was a place of belonging, to the city, to the youth, to oneself.

But there was also silence. She told me honestly about the distance that had grown with the cinema over time. The young children, the changes of city, widowhood, loneliness. She said that today she no longer feels the urge to go to the cinema, and that perhaps she wouldn't go back even if the high street cinemas reopened. Because life changes. And sometimes you withdraw. And that's okay. There's strength in that vulnerability too. Even so, when she remembered films like Gone with the Wind, her eyes lit up. She said she'd watched it more than ten times. She still gets emotional. And it was at that moment that I realised that cinema remains, even if it's no longer a habit. It lives on in memories. In the saved scenes. In the sensations.

Talking to Tita meant listening to the Piracicaba of a romantic time, when cinemas were landmarks of the city and of affection. It was to understand how the cultural history of a city is intertwined with the intimate stories of those who inhabit it. And it was also a reminder: the cinema we want to preserve with Piracicaba Never Forgotten is not just in the old buildings. It's in the people. In the lives that passed through those rooms and never forgot what they felt there. Tita didn't smile at the time of the photo, she said she doesn't like to smile in portraits. But during the interview, she smiled many times. And the most beautiful thing is that those smiles didn't stay in the photograph. They remained in the memory, in the sound, in the moving image. They remained on film. And they will certainly stay with me.

Dara Oliver