Memory and identity of experiences at the movie theater:

Abstract

Registered as historic site, the Cine Theatro Capitolio was founded in 1928, in Porto Alegre, State of Rio Grande do Sul, in Brazil. Until 1994 the building was a place where people of different ages and backgrounds used to meet to enjoy a good movie or just have a good time together. After some political measures affecting the patrimony area the community decided to organize a Cinema Friends Association that called for a research work on the oral traditions and experiences in that place, in order to safeguard the social narratives that they represented. Data collection and interview recordings took place between 2006 and 2007. People spoke of their memories at the Capitolio, creating an important register of a social identity which apparently was not related to films but was rather linked with social contacts. This paper, using theoretical and cultural studies, proposes a reflection about the social memory which mixes itself with the historic site memory. Narratives are about people and a specific building in a community, but the results delineate a research work about the identity of a modern way of socializing which is in a large sense epistemological.