CubaPLUS Magazine

Foreign tourists and even national ones, walking through downtown Havana, by the corner of L and 23, in the neighborhood of El Vedado, close to the Coppelia ice cream parlor, they come across the still striking cinema building Yara, active as always in film screening, although It has also been used for various musical shows.

Right on that corner, but on 23rd Street and down that street, towards the boardwalk, begins the famous street known as La Rampa, one of the most populous arteries of that environment in which is also located the Hotel Habana Libre. There is no doubt, despite its short height and age, the Yara Cinema is an essential point of the capital's urban landscape and it would almost be that the city is unthinkable without it.

Born under the name of Warner Radiocentro in the late 50s, integrated into a large complex associated with the broadcasting of television in our country, it always knew how to take advantage of its enviable location within the city, at all times. With the aboriginal name of Yara given to it in 1968, honoring our roots, has been the main cinema in the premiere circuit. The word of indigenous origin Yara, with a sweet and beautiful sound, it has several meanings such as alert, which is one of them, but not defined.

Searching for the ancestry of this nickname on Cuban land we will say that it is that of a small and charming municipality, belonging to the eastern province of Granma. There, possibly on February 2, 1512, a sacrifice occurred in the bonfire of the indigenous chief Hatuey, a warrior from Quisqueya who fought early against Spanish colonization. And in the land of that humble town today, the first combat of the liberating army, after the cry of La Demajagua on October 10, 1868. Although the Yara skirmish was lost by the mambises, that fact gave birth to the famous “Yara Yell” that gave its name to the Havana cinema.

Ever since the capital had a cinema with that name, it is logical that in the small eastern municipality where such glorious events occurred In fact, there is also one with that name. As you can see, it was the heroic history of this country, which is honored equally throughout the territory, naming Yara to two cultural institutions located in the East and West of the island. The Yara cinema, located in the municipality of the same name, was inaugurated on October 19, 1968, to the pleasure of lovers of the seventh art in that town, since they lacked that type of institution.  With a capacity that exceeds 321 seats, it has hosted numerous premieres of Cuban films such as the case of “El Mayor”, with interesting and emotional passages from the independence wars of the country against Spanish colonialism.

Cubans, markedly cinephiles, will soon be enjoying a New Latin American Film Festival, in which the central Yara of L and 23 has a predominant role. With seats for 1,500 people, the capital's Yara is packed with an enthusiastic and expectant audience, waiting for the most exciting premieres announced in that quote. It is a currently interactive and multipurpose place where the inexorable passing of the years has not diminished its vitality.

In the Yara of the Granma municipality, the sunsets and days are more calm and very different but, cinema and culture, as in the rest of the country, is an act of recreation that everyone likes.