The Modern Lives of Cuba’s Old Movie Theaters

The photographer Carolina Sandretto spent the past four years tackling what turned out to be a massive undertaking: documenting 398 of Cuba’s remaining cinemas. It was an experience that, she says, was a source of near constant surprise. “As I never had a precise map of where the cinemas were located or even if they were still existing, each one was a discovery and an achievement on its own,” she says. For this project, now a book called Cines de Cuba, Sandretto scoured the country for remaining movies houses—some of which are still operational, some repurposed, others left to decay.