El espectáculo de las cenizas: reconstrucción de teatros y memorias fílmicas

Theatres are prominent icons in the brand image of cities. Their frequent destruction and reconstruction is recorded by documentary cinema inall of the different phases of this traumatic process. This text analyses how filmic images can simultaneously bear historical witness to moments of catastrophe, to the shock of communities, to the actions carried out by the administration of the polis, to discussions regarding the need to provide continuity to the theatrical institution and to the works of reconstruction. Furthermore it seeks to debate the capacity of cinemas to keep this memory alive, to reinvent and interpret it in thecontext of the communities to which they belong. Four emblematic case studies are chosen for this analysis, in Spain, Italy and Portugal.