Its plastic-coated chairs could illustrate any news about the heatwave. They would not pass a minimum ergonomic control. no need to do. Its sound sometimes fluctuates and at one of the sessions last summer some angry, hard-hearing spectators yelled for the volume to be turned up.. Instead, what should be heard, is heard perfectly. His room does not have air conditioning, it is not refrigerated, but in reality it is: the open air, the sea breeze that comes from the nearby beach after crossing the first orchard belt. It is common, in one of those Mediterranean storms that breaks in at dawn threatening order, that its immense screen is covered in water and the cinema seems to be about to drown.. Instead, its reed flexibility contributes to its stability..

It is the Lumiere, a cinema, but also a terrace, in Alboraya, on the outskirts of Valencia to the north. Its history is that of one of those summer cinemas that was born, as in so many towns in Spain, to give free rein to the habit of putting on a good sandwich while watching some of the novelties on the billboard.. In the midst of a barrage of luxury cinemas, with comfortable armchairs and subordinates who, at the push of a button, come with mixed drinks and gourmet hamburgers, the Lumiere is a hipster counterculture.

The owner's family, Enrique Riera, attends from the access, more prone to tearing a ticket than reading a QR. Once the step has been taken, a patio with an agricultural aftertaste serves as a hall, with an L-shaped bar, spread out among fruit trees, where August entrepanies are prescribed: goats and almussafes in the lead. And a few cremaets, because to top some familiar blockbusters one must prepare beforehand.

Going through a metal door that would seem to lead to the changing rooms of a sports center, a huge open-air lounge opens instead where hundreds of beer chairs promise a double session that begins at ten at night and ends with the threat of an after-party.. There are children screaming, there is revelry, there is discomfort, there is sweat. Therefore, there is humanity, far from prophylactic wrappers. When going to the movies feels like being part of a community.

The feeling of having a double session among tiger nut fields -in the homeland of horchata, surrounding a polygon-, far from being an experience out of context, has the precise sense of a society -the one that inhabits the margins between Valencia and Alboraya – that it has carved out its future by adapting to the terraces (at best; at worst, it has swallowed them).

since the 70s

The story of the Riera family and summer cinema begins in the seventies, with a group of young moviegoers who, in the throes of the dictatorship, needed to breathe fresh air and remove mothballs from the screens.. From desire to facts. With a programming specialized in alternative titles, they founded their film club in the facilities of the old Alboraya ateneo, picking up the baton from Cine Monterrey. One of the last spare generations, the last dance in the life of the village cinemas. Later, the Lumiere moved to its current location, 'next to the gas station', where it has stood for over 25 years..

In all this time, at ten at night the lights go out. Give way to the great light. If at that time it is common in some streets of the municipality to see a trail of chairs in front of the portals, people in the cool, sharing the night between xarretas, the proposal in the Lumiere extends just that spirit.

You could imagine that compared to content platforms or cinemas that are as air-conditioned as a refrigerated truck, a terrace in the middle of the orchard is an uncompetitive option.. It has precisely been overcoming setbacks due to its differentiation. The idea of community against the automation of the shopping center, the liturgy of roots. Without holding companies or investors behind him, Riera projects movies to the lungs. Like the very same orchard that surrounds it, smallholder to the limit. Until you drop from exhaustion.