Centro restaurant adds free movies to the menu
Mérida, Yucatán — Filling the void created when Cairo Cinema Café shut down in January, the Alma Calma restaurant is carving out a cinema space.
Alma Calma occupies the space previously occupied by Avocado, and before that, Café Chocolate, on Calle 60 at 49 in the Centro Histórico.
In collaboration with the Colectivo Cinema, Alma Calma will screen films every Tuesday at 8 p.m.
The entrance will be free, as is the popcorn. Special promotions are also planned.
Cairo Cinema Café, a video store and cinema in Itzimná, for years offered a program of cult and art films, as did LA68, which closed in 2015.
The Olimpo Cultural Center, which is run by the city, offers free Hollywood movies, as does the small Wednesday movie nights at Il Caffé, which draws an expat crowd. The El Colibrí Cultural Center on Calle 64 also shows art films as part of its programming.
And Cinépolis, the giant movie-theater chain, announced at the beginning of the year that it would build a multiplex somewhere in the Centro.
Colectivo Cinema, which will program the films, is an open-air cinema project that has taken place twice a year since 2016 in different venues, such as the railway museum. They offer a mix of independent and commercial movies.
An Owen Wilson film series will celebrate the Texas-born actor with screenings of “Zoolander” and “The Royal Tenenbaums” by Texas-born director Wes Anderson.
On Tuesday, May 15, the Colectivo has chosen “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (2014) by Wes Anderson, where Wilson plays M. Chuck. The comedy focuses on the friendship between a concierge and a young hotel employee.
On Tuesday, May 22, they will screen Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris,” (2011), in which Wilson plays a screenwriter exploring the city’s streets.
The public will be called on to choose which movie is screened the week after that.
Alma Calma restaurant is pet friendly, so attendees can go with their four-footed companions.
With information from La Jornada Maya
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