The Circus on Screen: New Exhibition in the Lobby of the Museum of Cinema

Monday, February 16, 2026

The Museum of Cinema presents, until June 2026, an exhibition in the lobby dedicated to the connections between the circus and cinema, from pre-cinema to the present day. The exhibition is the result of a collaboration with the Municipal Theatre of Girona, which includes in its program the show Rodols i Cigrons by Escarlata Circus, a proposal that combines the language of the circus and cinematography.

The circus and cinema have shared, since their origins, the same goal: to captivate audiences through surprise, emotion, and visual impact. Now, this historic relationship takes center stage in a new exhibition at the Museum of Cinema, which can be visited in the museum lobby until June.

The exhibition offers a journey through the connections between the world of the circus, pre-cinematic shows, and the birth of cinema. Before the advent of the seventh art, devices such as the zoetrope, the praxinoscope, or the magic lantern already displayed moving images that often recreated acrobatics, grotesque figures, and spectacular scenes very close to the circus aesthetic.

With the arrival of cinema at the end of the 19th century, the circus became an immediate source of inspiration. Early films reproduced acts of acrobats, clowns, or magicians, using movement and physical risk as essential elements of the new audiovisual language. This influence was especially evident in silent comedy, with figures like Charlie Chaplin - author of The Circus (1928) - or Buster Keaton, direct heirs of slapstick and the physical tradition of the circus.

Throughout the 20th century, cinema also turned the circus into a symbolic and narrative stage. Films like La Strada (1954), by Federico Fellini, or Freaks (1932), by Tod Browning, offered profound and human perspectives, while productions such as The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) or Trapeze (1956) focused on spectacle and drama. In more recent times, Big Fish (2003), by Tim Burton, has revived the circus from a fantastic and evocative dimension.

The exhibition presents a selection of materials from the museum's collections that testify to this fruitful relationship between pre-cinema, cinema, and circus, inviting visitors to rediscover how these two disciplines have interacted over more than a century.

The initiative is the result of a collaboration with the Municipal Theatre and is presented as a parallel activity to the show Rodols i Cigrons by Escarlata Circus, a proposal that combines circus language and cinematography, thus strengthening the bridges between stage and screen.