How long has it been since you went to the cinema?

---Pilar, how long has it been since you physically went to the cinema?

The writer and journalist assures that precisely the day before she had thought about going. She emphasizes that, with Robert, her partner, they go to the cinema a lot. However, finally, she replies:

---It must be... Since before the lockdown, of course.

---Màrius, do you remember the last time you went?

The former director of La Vanguardia and writer thinks back and answers:

---It must have been more than six months. After the summer. But I don't even remember what movie I saw. Only that everything was horrible: the mask, being in a closed place...

Pilar agrees with him that the mask is a nuisance.

---Baños, do you remember your last time?

---Oh... It must have been at least a couple of long years –replies the journalist, writer and former CUP politician–, I lost the habit of going, honestly.

They joke and someone suggests that when Baños last went to the cinema, movies were still in black and white.

---And you, Alejandro?

---Before the lockdown –he replies bluntly and, perhaps so as not to appear as an insensitive businessman regarding culture, he adds: I have been to the theater, though, eh?

---Tian?

The also journalist and writer is no exception:

---It's been at least a couple of years. I don't remember the last movie I saw in the cinema. Cinema has very good things, but also others that are dreadful.

Like many Catalans, Pilar seems to have gotten confused with the Procicat prohibitions because she candidly asks:

---But, can you go to the cinema?

The rest answer her practically in unison:

---Of course you can go!

Once it is clarified that whoever doesn't go to the cinema is because they don't want to, Tian resumes his argument and points to the fact that people eat popcorn in the room as one of the dreadful things that, in his opinion, going to the cinema entails. Nobody seems interested in debating it.

This mini-survey among his panelists was enough for Basté to highlight that cinema is in a slump. Before moving on to another topic, he announces that, starting at 11 am, they will talk about the future of the seventh art with Toni Vall.

This happened on Monday morning. A few hours earlier, the ninety-third edition of the Oscar night had been held in Los Angeles. While having breakfast, I reviewed the list of award winners and the dresses that Hollywood stars had worn on the red carpet. Although I have never stayed awake to watch the ceremony, I like to listen to the analysis that critics make afterwards.

Therefore, I turned on the radio. I tuned into Basté, who was starting the discussion, and I was surprised that instead of asking the pundits if they had already seen Nomadland or any other of the awarded films, he asked Pilar Rahola, Màrius Carol, Antonio Baños, Alejandro López-Fonta, and Tian Riba when was the last time they had gone to the cinema. The answers left me frozen. That it was a couple of long years, that it was at least six months...

The first thing I thought was that if Pilar, Màrius, Baños, Alejandro, and Tian had stopped going to the cinema regularly, in many cases even before the pandemic, things were much worse than I had imagined. Mainly, because I consider them cultured people who, for Sant Jordi, surely buy tons of books, go to many concerts, and don't miss any of the big exhibitions of the season. How can it be explained that intellectually restless people have stopped going to the cinema? Already in his davantal, Basté argued that the coronavirus has aggravated the situation, but that the problem comes from afar. The director and presenter of El món a RAC1 himself – an inveterate cinephile whom years ago, on Catalunya Ràdio, I loved listening to in his frequent cameos on Àlex Gorina's program – noted that we no longer talk with friends about the last movie we went to see at the cinema but about the series, in plural, that we are watching on Netflix, HBO, Amazon Prime, Movistar, or Filmin.

How can it be explained that intellectually restless people have stopped going to the cinema? Already in his davantal, Basté argued that the coronavirus has aggravated the situation, but that the problem comes from afar

Watch out, me first! I have gone from going to the cinema once or twice a week to doing it much more sporadically. However, as much as I have a large screen of considerable dimensions presiding over the living room at home, I still love to shut myself in a large, dark room to watch a moviethat I won't be able to stop to go pee or drink water; that if I'm sleepy I'll have to put up with it because I won't be able to finish watching it the next day and that if at times it gets heavy I won't be able to watch it while I browse Twitter or write awhatsapp. In the exhibition halls, from the moment the lights go out until the credits roll, it is cinema that rules.

Just last week, I went to Phenomena to see Another Round (Druk, in Danish) by Thomas Vinterberg —Oscar for best international film— and it made me happy to see the huge hall on Sant Antoni Maria Claret street quite full and a long line of people waiting to enter the next session. There is still a cinephile audience, but let's face it, cinema no longer plays the fundamental role it once did in our lives.

There is still a cinephile audience, but let's face it, cinema no longer plays the fundamental role it once did in our lives

I was thinking about this a few days ago, rereading the memoirs of Terenci Moix, for whom cinema was a fantastic school of life. For better or worse, Hollywood no longer has a monopoly on dream manufacturing. However, it would be a shame if Barcelona continued to lose spectators and, consequently, movie theaters at the rate it has been doing in recent years. To prevent this from happening, it is important that people like Basté, Rahola, Màrius, Baños, Alejandro, and Tian not only go back to the cinema, but then talk about it on the radio. Many people listen to them.