If you’ve ever wondered why you get nowhere working your biceps, triceps and even forearms at the gym, The Fate of the Furious should enlighten you: Between them, costars Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel have cornered what looks to be roughly 60 to 70 percent of the world’s arm musculature. If they ever flexed in sync, the isometric pulse might knock out the entire electrical grid.
Which isn’t necessarily out of the realm of possibility in the outlandish story for this, the eighth Fast & Furious film and the first without the late, beloved Paul Walker. What matters to fans,...
Which isn’t necessarily out of the realm of possibility in the outlandish story for this, the eighth Fast & Furious film and the first without the late, beloved Paul Walker. What matters to fans,...
- 4/10/2017
- by Tom Gliatto
- PEOPLE.com
Could there be a more perfect moment than this? Sitting in the garden behind the Hotel Nacional, looking at the Cuban flag so proudly waving over the Straits of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. The same site where the defense was built during the Cuban Missile Crisis, this moment of time marks a particularly precarious balance between peaceful coexistence and military aggression as we contemplate the recent death of Castro and election of Trump, wondering how it will play out in 2017.Hotel Nacional, Headquarters of Festival de Cine Nuevo Iberoamericano, Havana, Cuba
Cuba, ten days after the death of Fidel Castro, head of state for 52 years,may be a bit more subdued, but life here goes on, even with the influx of American tourists (other tourists have always been here); there is a sense of harmony. And in spite of the scarcity of luxuries for its people, the people...
Cuba, ten days after the death of Fidel Castro, head of state for 52 years,may be a bit more subdued, but life here goes on, even with the influx of American tourists (other tourists have always been here); there is a sense of harmony. And in spite of the scarcity of luxuries for its people, the people...
- 12/29/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Fidel Castro, Cuba's longtime revolutionary leader who defied the United States for nearly half a century, died Friday. He was 90 years old.
Castro had been suffering from declining health for several years. The communist dictator, known for bringing the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere in 1959, "devilling 11 American presidents and briefly pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war," as The New York Times reported, ceded his power to his younger brother, Raul Castro, due to an intestinal illness eight years ago. Fidel officially resigned as president in February 2008, and Raul took over permanently.
Watch: Khloe Kardashian Says She's 'So Blessed to Be Able to Appreciate Another's Culture' Amid Stirring Controversy with 'Fidel' Pic in Cuba
Raul announced his brother's death Friday on Cuban television. Following the news, many political figures, journalists and celebrities took to social media to share their reactions on Castro, who famously survived numerous assassination attempts by the CIA and anti-Castro exiles...
Castro had been suffering from declining health for several years. The communist dictator, known for bringing the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere in 1959, "devilling 11 American presidents and briefly pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war," as The New York Times reported, ceded his power to his younger brother, Raul Castro, due to an intestinal illness eight years ago. Fidel officially resigned as president in February 2008, and Raul took over permanently.
Watch: Khloe Kardashian Says She's 'So Blessed to Be Able to Appreciate Another's Culture' Amid Stirring Controversy with 'Fidel' Pic in Cuba
Raul announced his brother's death Friday on Cuban television. Following the news, many political figures, journalists and celebrities took to social media to share their reactions on Castro, who famously survived numerous assassination attempts by the CIA and anti-Castro exiles...
- 11/26/2016
- Entertainment Tonight
Fidel Castro, the former Cuban president and revolutionary, has died. He was 90.
Castro’s younger brother and current Cuban president Raul Castro announced the news on state television on Friday night.
In a solemn and unexpected broadcast, Raul announced that Castro had died at 10:29 p.m. local time on Friday and his body would be cremated later on Saturday. A period of official mourning has been declared on the island nation until Dec. 4, when Castro’s ashes will be laid to rest in the city of Santiago.
Castro rose to power in 1959 when he and a small army of...
Castro’s younger brother and current Cuban president Raul Castro announced the news on state television on Friday night.
In a solemn and unexpected broadcast, Raul announced that Castro had died at 10:29 p.m. local time on Friday and his body would be cremated later on Saturday. A period of official mourning has been declared on the island nation until Dec. 4, when Castro’s ashes will be laid to rest in the city of Santiago.
Castro rose to power in 1959 when he and a small army of...
- 11/26/2016
- by Maria Mercedes Lara
- PEOPLE.com
President Obama is under fire for attending a baseball game in Havana, Cuba, in the wake of the terror attacks in Brussels on Tuesday that left at least 30 people dead. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani criticized the president on Tuesday for not cutting short his Cuba trip. "It's outrageous that the president of the United States is not in the situation room right now, planning to destroy Isis," Giuliani told Fox News of Obama, who attended the game on Tuesday with his family and Cuban President Raúl Castro. "That would be like Franklin Roosevelt remaining at Warm Springs when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor,...
- 3/23/2016
- by Tierney McAfee, @tierneymcafee
- PEOPLE.com
President Obama is under fire for attending a baseball game in Havana, Cuba, in the wake of the terror attacks in Brussels on Tuesday that left at least 130 people dead. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani criticized the president on Tuesday for not cutting short his Cuba trip. "It's outrageous that the president of the United States is not in the situation room right now, planning to destroy Isis," Giuliani told Fox News of Obama, who attended the game on Tuesday with his family and Cuban President Raúl Castro. "That would be like Franklin Roosevelt remaining at Warm Springs when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor,...
- 3/23/2016
- by Tierney McAfee, @tierneymcafee
- PEOPLE.com
The Obama family just keeps bringing it! Just days after arriving in Cuba, President Obama, Michelle, who stunned in a gorgeous Tory Burch dress, and daughters Sasha and Malia all attended a baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team in Havana on Tuesday. Of course the brood was there to watch the game, but it was their cute antics that ended up stealing the show. At one point, President Obama was caught playfully pushing Michelle's arm and was even spotted doing the wave with Cuban president Raul Castro. The three-day trip marks the first time that an American sitting president has visited the country in almost 90 years. Keep reading to see more photos of the fun outing, and then look back at Sasha and Malia's sweetest moments of all time.
- 3/23/2016
- by Monica Sisavat
- Popsugar.com
President Obama is covering a lot of ground in Cuba. In an interview with ABC's David Muir for World News Tonight, the president shared his thoughts of political prisoners in Cuba, Donald Trump and his Spanish proficiency. During a joint news conference with Cuban president Raul Castro, the two leaders butt heads on the topic of human rights in Cuba as Castro reportedly denied knowing of any political prisoners in his country. Confused, he asked for a list of names from Obama, promising that upon receiving the list "political prisoners will be released before tonight ends." ABC Breaking News | Latest News Videos However,...
- 3/22/2016
- by Naja Rayne, @najarayne
- PEOPLE.com
President Obama is covering a lot of ground in Cuba. In an interview with ABC's David Muir for World News Tonight, the president shared his thoughts of political prisoners in Cuba, Donald Trump and his Spanish proficiency. During a joint news conference with Cuban president Raul Castro, the two leaders butt heads on the topic of human rights in Cuba as Castro reportedly denied knowing of any political prisoners in his country. Confused, he asked for a list of names from Obama, promising that upon receiving the list "political prisoners will be released before tonight ends." ABC Breaking News | Latest News Videos However,...
- 3/22/2016
- by Naja Rayne, @najarayne
- PEOPLE.com
School may be out of session this week, but Malia Obama is still working on her Spanish. The eldest of President Obama's daughters has taken to the role of interpreter for her father during the family's historic trip to Cuba. In a photo shared on Pete Souza's - the Chief Official White House photographer - Instagram, the father daughter duo share a laugh with a Spanish-speaking native as Malia, 17, translates. "The President and Malia share a laugh as Malia translates Spanish to English for her dad at a restaurant in Old Havana," Souza captioned the photo of the trio.
- 3/22/2016
- by Naja Rayne, @najarayne
- PEOPLE.com
School may be out of session this week, but Malia Obama is still working on her Spanish. The eldest of President Obama's daughters has taken to the role of interpreter for her father during the family's historic trip to Cuba. In a photo shared on Pete Souza's - the Chief Official White House photographer - Instagram, the father daughter duo share a laugh with a Spanish-speaking native as Malia, 17, translates. "The President and Malia share a laugh as Malia translates Spanish to English for her dad at a restaurant in Old Havana," Souza captioned the photo of the trio.
- 3/22/2016
- by Naja Rayne, @najarayne
- PEOPLE.com
U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro shook hands and smiled for cameras as they greeted each other at the Palace of the Revolution in Havana, Cuba, Monday morning. Obama, along with First Lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia, 17, and Sasha, 14, and Michelle's mother, Marian Robinson, touched down in Cuba on Sunday for a historic trip that marks a new chapter in U.S.-Cuban relations. Obama, the first sitting American president in 90 years to visit Cuba, exchanged pleasantries with Castro through an interpreter Monday morning. Obama told the Cuban president that the First Family has been...
- 3/21/2016
- by Tierney McAfee, @tierneymcafee
- PEOPLE.com
U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro shook hands and smiled for cameras as they greeted each other at the Palace of the Revolution in Havana, Cuba, Monday morning. Obama, along with First Lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia, 17, and Sasha, 14, and Michelle's mother, Marian Robinson, touched down in Cuba on Sunday for a historic trip that marks a new chapter in U.S.-Cuban relations. Obama, the first sitting American president in 90 years to visit Cuba, exchanged pleasantries with Castro through an interpreter Monday morning. Obama told the Cuban president that the First Family has been...
- 3/21/2016
- by Tierney McAfee, @tierneymcafee
- PEOPLE.com
Lluvia, lluvia, vete! (That's "rain, rain, go away" for non-Spanish speakers.) Even the rain couldn't stop the First Family's milestone trip to Cuba, with the Obamas touring Havana after touching down in the island nation on Sunday. After arriving at the Havana airport in the afternoon, President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha Obama immediately began their tour of the city's historic district. The Obamas walked among a cheering crowd, who united to chant "U.S.A.!" near Plaza de Armas Square. The First Family later stopped at the Museo de la Ciudad, Havana's official city museum,...
- 3/21/2016
- by Lindsay Kimble, @lekimble
- PEOPLE.com
President Barack Obama and the First Family touched down in Cuba on Sunday, kicking off the first leg of their landmark trip to the island nation. Joined by wife Michelle Obama, as well as daughters Malia, 17, and Sasha, 14, and his mother-in-law Marian Robinson, President Obama will use the trip as a first step in further normalizing relations between the U.S. and Cuba. Rachel Robinson, the wife of the late Major League Baseball Player Jackie Robinson, and her daughter Sharon Robinson also joined the Obamas on Air Force One for their trip. The Obamas will spend part of their time touring historic Havana,...
- 3/20/2016
- by Lindsay Kimble, @lekimble
- PEOPLE.com
President Barack Obama will travel to Cuba next month - a trip that will make him the first sitting U.S. president in 90 years to do so. Joined by First Lady Michelle Obama, the president will visit the island nation on March 21st and 22nd, before continuing on to Argentina on the 23rd and 24th, the White House said in a statement Thursday. The landmark trip comes just 14 months after Obama announced plans to begin to normalize relations with Cuba, and following the president's decision to reopen the U.S. embassy in the country last July. "In addition to holding...
- 2/18/2016
- by Lindsay Kimble, @lekimble
- PEOPLE.com
President Barack Obama will travel to Cuba next month - a trip that will make him the first sitting U.S. president in 90 years to do so. Joined by First Lady Michelle Obama, the president will visit the island nation on March 21st and 22nd, before continuing on to Argentina on the 23rd and 24th, the White House said in a statement Thursday. The landmark trip comes just 14 months after Obama announced plans to begin to normalize relations with Cuba, and following the president's decision to reopen the U.S. embassy in the country last July. "In addition to holding...
- 2/18/2016
- by Lindsay Kimble, @lekimble
- PEOPLE.com
Last April, Presidents Obama and Raul Castro shook hands at the Summit of the Americas in Panama, marking the first meeting between a USA and Cuban head of state since the two countries severed ties in 1961. The meeting came 4 months after the presidents announced both countries would restore ties following previous long-maintained policies of economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation. Although the USA trade embargo, which requires congressional approval to be rescinded, still remains, the Obama administration took executive action to ease some restrictions on travel to Cuba by USA citizens, as well as restrictions on the import and export of goods between each country, beginning the...
- 2/17/2016
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
Sean Penn is one brave man. The actor turned activist has been at the forefront of political and social causes such as his work in Haiti, his meetings with controversial political figures such as Cuban president Raul Castro, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and now he can add Mexico's public enemy number 1 - Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera otherwise known as El Chapo. The infamous drug lord escaped two Mexican prisons, but was recently captured once again. In the Rolling Stone article, he details the trip to Mexico along with Mexican actress Kate del Castillo who arranged the meeting with her pen pal.
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- 1/10/2016
- by info@cinemovie.tv (Super User)
- CineMovie
** New Update: Two more American films have come to my attention through readers of the blog:
Alison Klayman wrote to say "I know you said at least two films, but I wanted specifically to alert you to the fact that my film "The 100 Years Show" is also playing in the Panorama Documental sections (same as Pj Letofsky's film). "The 100 Years Show" is about 100-year old Cuban-American artist Carmen Herrera, and was produced with RatPac (Brett Ratner) Documentary Films. I'll be attending the festival too.
Alex Mallis wrote in to say: "Our short narrative, "La Noche buena" (the first American-directed since the embargo) is also screening at the festival.
Original Blog:
At least two films by American filmmakers will screen this year at the Havana Film Festival, whose official name is Festival de Cine Nuevo Latinamericano. As the Centerpiece Film, Bob Yari, producer of almost 50 films, will screen his second directed film “Papa” about Ernest Hemingway. It can be called “the first [official or legal] American film made in Havana in the last fifty years”, though underground films have been made (e.g., “Love & Suicide”). “Papa” is being sold at Afm by Elias Axume’s Premiere Entertainment.
Doc filmmaker Pj Letofsky will also be screening his film “ Tarkovsky: Time Within Time” which just premiered at the Sao Paolo Film Festival.
Many U.S. citizens are now interested in going to Havana. To give an in-depth look at Cuba’s film business, I am publishing a [long] chapter of what I hope will soon be published, my book on Iberoamerican film business. I will also be publishing another [shorter] interview here soon with Havana Film Festival Director, Ivan Giroud.
Cuba (Chapter Seven)
Officially the Republic of Cuba, or in Spanish, República de Cuba, the nation is comprised of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. To the north of Cuba lies the United States; the Bahamas are to the northeast, México to the west, the Cayman Islands and Jamaica to the south, and Haiti and the Dominican Republic are to the southeast.
Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean, and with over 11 million inhabitants.
Cuba is undergoing a transition into a market, entrepreneurial economy under the Presidency of Raul Castro. With this transition, the cinema industry is also undergoing great changes. The state mandated organization, Icaic, which has been running the cinema industry, is now under scrutiny. New legislation concerning the film industry is slowly underway as a result of discussions ongoing within the film community. Hopefully the establishment of diplomatic relations will the U.S. last October will propel changes, though without lifting the embargo, it may not.
History of Cinema of Cuba
Cuba’s elite has always stayed in touch with the latest in culture as it developed in Europe during the Spanish colonial era. Cuba’s tradition of cinema dates back to 1897 when the Lumiére Brothers representative from France stopped in Havana to show their films on a tour of the Antilles Islands, México, Venezuela, and the Guineas. Cuba’s particular style of cinema, called the “Cinema of the Greater Antilles”, evolved from the theater of melodrama and comedy and from the radio dramas of Felix B. Caignet, all of which formed the popular melodramas and comedies we still see today.
Mexican coproductions and U.S. filmmakers escaping the monopolistic Edison came to Cuba as well as to California in the early days of film. Federico Garcia Lorca arrived in Cuba in 1930 with a screenplay, “Voyage of the Moon”, and a print of “Un Chien Andalou” hoping to break from the Paris-Berlin monopoly, but his plans never took shape. Many films from Spain, México, Argentina and Uruguay also played in Cuba. Some leading Cuban actors had a strong presence in México and Argentina. Musicians such as Ernesto Lecuona, Bola de Nieve and Rita Montaner performed in movies in several countries.
Cuba, along with Mexico and Argentina, has the most developed cinema culture of Latin America. At its most prosperous, it had the third largest number of theaters in Latin America until the special period when Ussr withdrew its support. Today it has 39 movie theaters. Three of them, including the Yara in Havana, had been built especially for 3D in the 1950s.
Movie going is one of Cuba’s national pastimes, rating perhaps as high as baseball. The average Cuban sees one and a half films a year. However, the lack of international appeal for most of its comedies and melodramas has held its international growth in check up to today. That is now changing.
The international nature of Cuban cinema was consciously defined after the Revolution of 1959 when the Institute for Cuban Art and Industry Cinematography (Icaic) was created by Fidel Castro and entrusted to his university classmate, Alfredo Guevara. The law creating Icaic was incorporated into the Cuban Constitution itself just three months after the Revolution and was an important part of the Nuevo Cine Latinoamerico, a movement throughout Latin America as the Latin American nations threw off their dictatorships. Film, according to this law, is "the most powerful and provocative form of artistic expression, and the most direct and widespread vehicle for education and bringing ideas to the public.”
Cinema was created for theatrical exhibition, for individuals and groups to share in smaller collectives, and for television.
The law ordaining Icaic to control every cinematographic activity created no further rules about financing, about submitting, reading and approving project proposals or regarding any required time frames. Icaic functions very internally with no outside surveillance.
Actually it is possible to make films without Icaic participation, the point is that without Icaic a film cannot get national distribution.
Over the past decade Icaic has loosened its monopolistic administration. Every sector and every level of cinema is discussing the concept of a new Law of Cinema with the government’s interest in formalizing as law a more inclusive infrastructure with more transparent rules and regulations.
Under the leadership of Raul Castro, the island has been undergoing a gradual economic reform process allowing entrepreneurs to license their own businesses after decades of state monopoly. The measures include the authorization of self-employment in more than 200 small trades and activities. According to the government, there are currently 442,000 registered as “self-employed”. The Castro administration hopes for this emerging sector to absorb over a million state workers to be laid off in the coming years.[ii]
In October 2014, the state closed down many private cinemas which had emerged avowing to the love of cinema of the people. Many were 3D “salons” in homes or in separate rooms in restaurants. Authorities pressed for "order, discipline and obedience" in the growing small business sector. Needless to say, the films shown were pirated and not licensed by the rights holders. Nor was there ever any official licensing to privately owned theaters (yet).
However, these could provide a good source of taxation. It needs to be decided what shall be taxed, how tax monies should be apportioned for film funding, film education, what tax incentives the government might offer, how distribution will be subsidized, how archives may be maintained and presented, how to regulate screenings, dvd, TV and online platforms, what cash incentives might bring in production from the outside, what joint ventures within the Caribbean might be developed and how Icaic is approaching and incorporating the changing environment. The Director of Icaic, Robert Smith de Castro. is facing more challenges than its previous longtime Director, Alfredo Guevera, ever faced when the government provided everything. Now it must find answers from its neighbors and its own internal producers and procedures.
In general, funding a film, renting equipment and shooting in Cuba all need to be approved by Icaic. This has changed somewhat as other players have come to take a role, like Rtv Commercial, which is in fact the production company of Cuban National Television.
Rtv Commercial coproduced the newest Cuban hit, “Conducta” (“Behavior”) with Icaic. It premiered at Ficg 2014 (Guadalajara International Film Festival) and played at Tiff 2014 and other festivals such as the Málaga Spanish Film Festival 2014 where it won five awards.
New Developments in Cuban Cinema
In 2014 there were 14 productions and coproductions made, compared to seven in 2009 and 4 in 2000 according to FnCl and Ocal, databases of Latin American film.
At Cannes’ Cinema du Monde in May 2014 and in San Sebastian’s Coproduction Forum, “ August” (“Agosto”) was one of 15 projects selected to be seen and discussed by the international community of sales, distribution and financial executives. Directed by Armando Capó Ramos and produced by La Feria Producciones’ Marcella Esquivel, it is a coproduction between Costa Rica and Cuba. It will shoot next year in Havana and is now raising funds through crowdfunding. Also featured among the 15 in San Sebastian was “Wolfdog” (“Hombre entre perro y lobo”) directed by Irene Gutiérrez and produced by El Viaje Films, a Spain-Cuba coproduction.
Seeking modes of financing outside of government funding began in 2002 with the Festival of New Filmmakers showcasing projects was created by young people outside the Icaic system. As a result of the 2002 event, five years later, a funding mechanism called Hacienda Cine was created by pulling productions from Icaic Cuban television into centers and foundations that have other areas for audiovisual production. Pitch sessions for each selected entity were set up. The prize for production services worth 20,000 Convertible Cuban Pesos (equivalent to Us $20,000) was set up by Icaic Production. There are currently also smaller groups creating smaller formats, scientific or otherwise who are fomenting alternative forms of financing as well.
Lia Rodriguez Nieto is an attorney who was mentored by and worked fourteen years, until his death, with Camilo Vives, Icaic’s head of production, first as an attorney and then as a producer. She has now taken charge of the industry section at the Havana Film Festival which Vives began in 2009. She and Antonio López, recently produced a Cuba-Panama-France coproduction “ El Acompañante” (“The Companion”) directed by Pavel Giroud. She states that over the last five to seven years, private (not state institutional) productions have co-existed with institutional production. However, it would be important for independent producers to have a more regulated and confident relationship with Icaic in a more normalized fashion in order to have easier access to filming permits, forms of financing, banking relations, coproduction treaties, and a number of other elements which are essential to film production.
Rebeca Chávez is a director and a member of one of the groups pushing for a new cinema law which will, in principle, establish a new system incorporating the democratic participation of all people in the business, including techs, writers, directors, producers, actors, etc. and where all will have a democratically designed access to funds. In1984 she began her career as documentary director and her work has been given different national and international awards. She is the second woman in Cuba who has made feature films. She has taught several seminars on theory and practice of documentary cinema and on the Cuban experience in the genre in different institutions in the United States, Puerto Rico, England and Spain. She has worked as advisor for scripts of documentaries and feature films.
It is most important that the state has the will to make these changes, and it has stated it is open to changing the laws. Omar González who succeeded Alfredo Guevara as the head of the Icaic was replaced in 2013 by 30 year Icaic employee Roberto Smith de Castro who is now faced with reorganizing Icaic and implementing new laws which are yet to be formulated. He is considered to be a patient and attentive man who listens and will work to incorporate the diverse opinions into a new working reality.
The son of the famed director Daniel Diaz Torres whose controversial film “Alicia en el pueblo de Maravillas” (“Alice in the City of Wonders”) in 1991 was so critical of the bureaucracy of the government at the time of the Soviet collapse that it caused the resignation of Icaic’s director Espinosa, independent producer Daniel Diaz Ravelo points out that the independent producer is neither legal nor illegal but exists in a sort of limbo, free to produce whatever he or she wants but needing legal sanctions to access necessary permits, equipment, etc. And a filmmaker has no bank account so fiscal responsibility is difficult. One must get a certificate from Icaic but there is no registration rule on how this is to be done.
And it gets more complicated. It is difficult to raise a Us$400,000 budget without networking with filmmakers from other countries and yet travel is not easy for Cubans. They can travel -- Cuba no longer has a problem with that -– but often they cannot get the visa required from the country they want or need to travel to. Daniel’s father had a problem in traveling to find financing for his last film, “La Pelicula de Ana” (“Ana's Movie”), from former producers of his films. It did receive some funding from Icaic and from former funding friend, Icestorm in Germany, and a loan from Ibermedia. Unfortunately Daniel Diaz Torres, Sr. recently died an early death and did not see the fruits of his labor in the 2013 Havana premiere.
The new generation today in Cuba is highly independent; it knows that diversity of film subjects and of filmmakers is key to Cuban cinema today and it is finding diverse sources of financing and distribution. It needs more information as well because everything depends upon contacts. Cineastes traveling to Cuba will find a vibrant group open to coproducing.
2015 marks the eighth year of the Havana Film Festival’s Works in Progress. The Post Production Award, Nuestra América Primera Copia, is an international competition for films from Latin America and from Cuba, with no restrictions; films can be produced by Icaic or independently. For example, in 2013 awards went to four films, one from Chile, “I’m Not Lorena” (“No Soy Lorena”), which premiered at Tiff 2014; one from Argentina, “La Salada”, which premiered at the San Sebastian International Film Festival 2014 and Tiff 2014; and two from Cuba -- one Icaic film, “His Wedding Dress” (“Vestido de novia”), and the independent, “Venice” which was also Tiff 2014.
Thanks to an initiative by La Muestra, a group of Cuban production companies (including several independent ones), once a year support is awarded to four or five projects by young filmmakers. The independent film “Melaza” by Carlos Lechuga with the 5ta Avenida Productions premiered on October 3, 2013.
Rubén Padrón Astorga, writing for On Cuba [iii], November-December 2013 [1] writes:
The best prospects for our cinema today emerged like an earthquake in late April of this year, when Kiki Álvarez, the director of “Jirafas”, “La ola” and “Marina” and “Venezia”, initiated a debate on the problems that the country has with two vital filmmaking processes (production and distribution). Close to 60 audiovisual makers responded with a meeting where they formed a Filmmakers Committee to represent the rest of the country’s professionals.
Soon after its creation, the Committee announced that its objectives included ensuring the active participation of Cuban filmmakers in every decision that was made about [our] cinema, and protecting and developing its production at the industrial and independent levels. At this time, they are working together with Icaic and the Ministry of Culture to pass a decree-law defining the autonomous audiovisual creator, which would legitimize filmmakers as a legal concept, with full rights to exercise their profession. However, the decree-law, which was drafted seven years ago and ratified by the most recent Uneac Congress, was rewritten by the Filmmakers Committee so that it is not limited to recognizing audiovisual practice as individual work, but as collective, and so that it legally protects independent producers.
This committee, together with the so-called Ministry of Culture Temporary Working Group for the Transformation of Icaic, is actively participating in drawing up a diagnosis of Cuban cinema’s problems, which will be followed with the drafting of policies and actions for solving those problems. This step will clear the way for the long-term creation of a comprehensive film law. This law, which would involve widening the scope of the law passed in 1959 for Icaic’s founding, or drafting a new one, would include the creation of a film commission that would support production and make it viable; a promotion fund that would be governed by an arts council, and to which all independent and institutional artists could aspire; financial incentives that would promote the support of private and state companies and sponsors; and a general legal framework that conceives of cinema systemically, inspired by the useful experiences that have taken place in other countries in the region, such as Colombia, Argentina, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic.
A convocation of cinema directors was held May 4, 2013 in Strawberry and Chocolate Cultural Center, Havana to address the need to participate in all plans and activities planned for Cuban cinema. The meeting chose a working group composed of Enrique Kiki Álvarez, Enrique Colina, Rebeca Chávez Lourdes de los Santos, Daniel Diaz Ravelo, Pavel Giroud, Magda González Grau, Inti Herrera, Senel Paz, Fernando Perez, Manuel Perez and Pedro L. Rodríguez.
The main objective of this group is to represent the filmmakers at all levels and events, promote and ensure the active participation of the same in all decisions and projects that relate to Cuban cinema, and strive for the protection and development of these arts and industries and their makers, which is our right and duty as protagonists of this art. At its first meeting, the group reached the following conclusions and agreements (verbatim):
1 -. We recognize the Cuban Film Institute and the Film Industry (Icaic) as the rector of the Cuban film industry state agency; born with the revolution and its long history is a legacy that belongs to all filmmakers. At the same time, we believe that the problems and projections of Cuban cinema today do not concern only the Icaic, but also other institutions and institutional groups or independently involved in their production, without whose help and commitment is not possible to achieve meaningful and lasting solutions. For that reason, its reorganization and promotion can not be done only in the context of this organism.
2 -. We understand the Cuban film produced through institutional, independent mechanisms, co-production with third or mixed formulas, and as filmmakers to all creators, technicians and Cuban specialists of these arts and industries that do their work inside or outside the institutions , whatever they may be aesthetic, content or affinity group. Consequently, it is imperative the adoption of Decree Law Media Creator recognition. This decree should be enriched with all additional legal supplements necessary.
3 -. We consider essential enacting a Film Law, whose production and given all participate and to be the legal body to order and protect the artistic and economic activity in the country.
4 -. We consider it important to study and implement a Film Development Fund, to which all authors in accessing equal rights and conditions, and open call to an independent jury whose selection parameter is the quality and feasibility of the whole project.
5 -. At this stage, the filmmakers give priority to the organization and remodeling of the methods of production and realization of works, the concept that these are, first and last instance being essentially the way we express ourselves and connect with the public. Similarly, we propose a systemic boost our activity covering the organization and remodeling of the forms of production, distribution, exhibition and national and international projection of Cuban cinema.
6 -. Start work, reviewing and updating the document "Proposals for a renewal of Cuban cinema", adopted at the Seventh Congress of the Uneac in 2008. As progress is made, they will be sharing all the proposals with the filmmakers.
7 -. Exchanging proposals and views with the State Commission working on the development of proposals for the transformation of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry.
8 -. To express our deep concern for all matters concerning international relations and Cuban cinema projection, which was a revolutionary vanguard movement in the Latin American and global context. We strive for a quick recovery and exchange relationships with filmmakers from Latin America and the world, and the continuity of the Festival of New Latin American Cinema, in its next edition turns 35.
9 -. This representation group performed their work in ongoing dialogue and communication with all filmmakers through regular meetings, which shall have the power to ratify or renew the group members, making decisions of common interest and to identify priorities and lines of job.
Filmmakers Group in the Assembly elected Cuban Filmmakers Saturday May 4 at the Centro Cultural Fresa y Chocolate, after its first meeting on May 8.
Havana, May 8, 2013. This was a verbatim article in Cubarte Magazine. [iv]
Festivals/ Markets
In 1979 Icaic created the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema aka Havana Film Festival as a way to disseminate its ethical convictions about developing film that was nonconformist, irreverent, critical of social injustice and rebellious against the pressures of the market across the continent. The event hosted over 600 filmmakers from Latin America and had as presidents of juries Gabriel García Márquez (Fiction ) and Santiago Álvarez (Documentaries and Cartoons.) The Coral Grand Prize winners were Geraldo Sarno (“Colonel Delmiro Gouveia”, Brazil) and Sergio Giral (“Maluala”, Cuba), in Fiction, Patricio Guzmán (“The Battle of Chile: the Struggle a People Without Arms”, Chile), Documentary, and Juan Padrón (“Elpidio Valdés”, Cuba) in Animation.
However, the contradiction of Icaic’s exercising a central control over maverick innovations is obvious since it controlled the production criteria and the right to decide what type of film was convenient to make and what was not.
An official competition of unpublished scripts for feature films is held by International Festival of New Latin American Cinema for authors from Latin America and the Caribbean for original scripts (no literary adaptations), written in Spanish and with Latin American themes. Scripts whose production rights have been transferred to third parties are not eligible. [v]
Icaic also supports the Festival Internacional de Cine Pobre de Humberto Solas[vi] for low budget films and Festival Internacional de Documentales “Santiago Alvarez in Memoriam”[vii].
Muestra Joven is a festival for Cuban youth with premiere fiction, doc and animated films. It has collateral activities of debates about the films in the festivals, master classes, meetings about contemporary issues and themes in the audiovisual community, workshps and onferences, poster exhibitions and homages.
In April 2014 the Mediateque of Women Directors, based in Cuba formally affiliated with The Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival in creating the the Caribbean Film Market. The project is also in association with The Foundation for Global Democracy and Development of the Dominican Republic, The Association for The Development of Art and Commercial Cinematography of Guadalupe, The Foundation for New Latinamerican Cinema, The Regional and International Film Festival of Guadalupe and the Mediateque of Women Directors.
Education
Icaic was in charge of training and promotion of talented young people not only in cinema but in other arts like music for which it created the Experimental Sound Group.
Isa
Most of the new independent filmmakers are young graduates of the Higher Art Institute’s (Isa) Faculty of Audiovisual Communication Media and its provincial affiliates. The University of Arts of Cuba - (Isa), Instituto Superior de Arte - was established on September 1, 1976 by the Cuban government as a school for the arts. Its original structure had three schools: Music, Visual Arts, and Performing Arts. At present the Isa has four schools, the previous three and the one for Arts and Audiovisual Communication Media. There are also four teaching schools in the provinces, one in Camagüey, two in Holguín and one in Santiago de Cuba. Isa offers pre-degree and post-degree courses, as well as a wide spectrum of brief and extension courses, including preparation for Cuban and foreign professors for a degree of Doctor on Sciences in Art. Predegree education has increased to five careers: Music, Visual Arts, Theatre Arts, Dance Arts and Arts and Audiovisual Communication Media. In 1996, the Isa established the National Award of Artistic Teaching, conceived for recognizing a lifework devoted to arts teaching.
Eictv
Eictv, the International School of Cinema and Television was founded December 15, 1986 at the Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana with the support of then-President Fidel Castro on the initiative of Latin American cultural figures such as Argentine director, “Father of the New Latin American Cinema”, Fernando Birri, Julio and Gabo and Colombian Nobel Prize winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez who donated his prize money to establish the school.. It is located in San Antonio de los Baños near Havana, on land donated by the Cuban government.
Hundreds of young students from all over Latin America have studied direction, script, photography and edition. Since its founding , 810 students have graduated and it has become one of the region’s most important and well-grounded cultural projects.
Students pay 15,000 euros (about $19,700) to attend for the full three-year program. The fee includes food, lodging and equipment. Tuition income accounts for just 15 percent of the school's budget. Funding comes from international agencies such as Ibermedia; countries including Brazil, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Panama; and regional organizations like the Alba alliance of leftist Latin American nations.
For the past eight years, Nuevas Miradas, organized by the Eictv Production Department has held its presentations at the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema for bringing new projects to the attention of international professionals.
Also in the late 1980s, Cuba created the Third World Film School to train students from various third world countries in the art of filmmaking.
Film Funding
Icaic has been the only body to fund films. How the selection of what films would receive funding has never been a public matter.
There are no instruments for private companies or individuals to contribute to film production in Cuba yet. There are however, international funds that may help finance films, such as Hubert Bals Fund from The Netherlands, World Cinema Fund from Germany, Fonds Sud from France, the Norwegian Fund, Sor Fond, Acp, etc. The best actively kept lists are found in Ocal[viii] and Online Film Financing [ix].
Coproduction with Cuba
As early as 1948 coproductions were common between Cuba and México. During the 70s and 80s Russian coproductions included Mikhail Kalatozov’s classic 1964 film “I Am Cuba” (“Soy Cuba”). Spain has played a role in coproducing Latin American and Cuban films since the 30s but in the 1990s it began to invest more heavily. In 1997 Ibermedia was created for the purpose of promoting coproduction between Spain and Latin American countries. Cuba is one of the fourteen countries involved in this organization.
In addition, Cuba has bilateral coproduction treaties with Italy, Canada, Venezuela, Spain and Chile. So far nothing has resulted from the Chile accord.
Two examples of Cuban coproduced films are Humberto Solás’ 1982 film “Cecilia” (Cuba - Spain) and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío’s 1992 Academy Award-nominated “Strawberry and Chocolate” (“Fresa y chocolate”) (Cuba – México – Spain - U.S.).
In September 2013 at San Sebastian International Film Festival’s 2nd Europe-Latin America Coproduction Forum, “The Companion”/ "El Acompañante" won the Best Project Award sponsored by Spain’s Audiovisual Producers’ Rights Management Association Egeda and carrying a 10,000 Euros (Us$13,000) cash award.
This is the third feature of Giroud after “The Silly Age” and “Omerta”. It is a coproduction of Cuba, Venezuela’s NativaPro Cinematográfica and France’s Tu Vas Voir owned by Edgard Tenembaum who produced Walter Salles’ “The Motorcycle Diaries”. The film also obtained the collaboration of Programa Ibermedia and was selected for Cinemas du Monde.
Pavel Giroud is one of the most promising of young Cuban filmmakers today. “The Companion”/ "El Acompañante" is set in 1988 Havana and tells the story of the friendship which develops between Horacio Romero, a Cuban boxer who fails a drug test and a defiant patient at an AIDS center under military rule for whom Romero must serve as a warden or, in Cuban government parlance, a “companion”. Playing the role of Horacio is Yotuel Romero (Latin Grammy Award-winning and founding member of Cuban rap group Orishas). Orishas is one of the world’s most critically hailed Latin-urban artists. The co-protagonist is Cuban actor Armando Miguel Gómez who has received international recognition for his role in the recent films "Behavior”/ “Conducta" and “Melaza”. International sales are handled by the Brazil-based international sales agency, Habanero, which, coincidently is owned by Cuban Alfredo Calvino and Brazilian Patricial Martin who handle such outstanding films as “Juan on the Dead”, Carlos Lechuga’s “Melaza”, Sebastian Cordero’s “Pescador” and Francisco Franco’s “Last Call”. Habanero also sponsors distribution awards at Ficg and Ventana Sur’s Primer Corte, a showcase for pictures in post-production. All the updated information about these films, including festivals and awards is available at: www.habanerofilmsales.com.
Case Study of the Producer, Inti Hererra
Cuba’s first English language film, “Eating the Sun”, a coproduction with Canada, is being produced by Inti Herrera who also is heading the new night spot of avant garde popular entertainment, La Fabrica de Arte Cubano.
Inti Herrera, formerly of 5ta Avenida Productions and I first met in 2003 through the international sales agent Alfredo Calvino whose then-company Latinofusion was selling Inti’s first fiction feature, “Viva Cuba”, a road movie of two kids traveling across Cuba in search of one’s father.
Inti graduated Eictv and worked for a long time as an independent producer of documentaries.
In 2009, when Camilo Vives, Icaic’s head of production created the Industry Sector of the Havana Film Festival Inti became its director and managed it until 2010. In 2010 when he was still running the industry space he invited me to speak about New Media, and I spoke of Peter Broderick who was then invited to do a workshop at Eictv.
As an executive producer, Inti must raise financing from the development through the completion of film projects. Each project is of course different from the last. He and Alejandro Brugués were originally discussing working on a different sort of film, “Melaza”, but put it on hold and in 2010 and 2011 he worked instead on the commercial film, “Juan of the Dead”, which is the most exhibited film of Cuba.
“Juan of the Dead”, Cuba’s first truly independent movie, a zombie horror comedy was coproduced in 2011 by Spain's La Zanfoña Producciones, where it was post-produced, and Cuba's first independent production company Producciones de la 5ta Avenida which also produced “Personal Belongings” in 2006 and “Melaza” in 2012. The film was written and directed by Alejandro Brugués (“Personal Belongings”). It was executive produced by Inti Herrera, Claudia Calviño and Gervasio Iglesias.
The film was represented for international sales by Latinofusion, a Guadalajara based company sponsored by Universidad de Guadalajara and managed by Alfredo Calvino. It was shown in more than 50 festivals worldwide, winning 10 audience awards and the Spanish Film Academy’s Goya Award of the for best Iberoamerican film. It sold to 42 territories.
“Juan of the Dead” distributors:
Argentina (Condor/ Mirada), Bolivia (Londra Films P&D), Brazil (Imovision), Canada (A-z Films), Chile (Arcadia Films), Germany (Pandastorm Pictures), Hong Kong and Macau (Sundream Motion Pictures), Hungary (Ads Service), Italy ( Moviemax Media Group Spa), Japan (Fine Films), Latin American Pay TV (HBO Latin America), México and Central America (Canana), Netherlands (Filmfreak), Norway (Tromso International Film Festival), Puerto Rico (Wiesner), Russia and Cis territories (Cinema Prestige), Spain (Avalon), Switzerland (Ascot Elite), U.K and Ireland (Metrodome), U.S.(Theatrical Distributor Outsider Pictures, all other rights Focus World)
Today Inti is working with a new director, Alfredo Ureta on the Canadian coproduction and the first Cuban film in English. “Eating the Sun” is about a Canadian-Cuban couple who decides to live in Cuba. Before settling in they make a tour of the country and become involved in a psychological thriller. The Canadian producer is Gordon Weiske of Canwood Entertainment. They are discussing the male lead role with Kris Holden-Ried. The goal is to find new markets for this film, markets which Cuba has not targeted before.
Top 10 Films of Cuba is a selection of my own:
1. “Memorias del subdesarrollo” (“Memories of Underdevelopment”) (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, 1968)
2. “Lucia” (Humberto Solás, 1969)
3. “Vampiros en La Habana” (“Vampires in Havana”) (Juan Padrón, 1983)
4. “Soy Cuba” (“I am Cuba”) ( Mikhail Kalatozov, 1964)
5. “La bella del Alhambra” (“The beauty of the Alhambra”) (Enrique Pineda Barnet, 1989)
6. “Fresa y Chocolate” (“Strawberry and Chocolate”) (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío, 1993)
7. “Lista de Espera” (“The waiting list”) (Juan Carlos Tabío, 2000)
8. “Havana Suite” (“Suite Havana”) (Fernando Pérez, 2003)
9. “Juan of the Dead” (Alejandro Brugués, 2011)
10. “Melaza” (Carlos Lechuga, 2013)
[1] http://www.oncubamagazine.com/magazine/for-independent-and-industrial-cuban-cinema/
Cubacine. El Portal del Cine Cubano. http://www.cubacine.cu/index.html.
[ii] http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=99785#sthash.yCWbyCcU.dpuf
[iii] http://oncubamagazine.com/magazine-articles/for-independent-and-industrial-cuban-cinema/ Cubacine. El Portal del Cine Cubano. http://www.cubacine.cu/index.html.
[iv] http://www.cubarte.cult.cu/periodico/opinion/cineastas-cubanos-por-el-cine-cubano/24423.html
[v] http://www.cinelatinoamericano.org/ocal/direct.aspx?cod=1234
[vi] www.festivalcinepobre.org , www.cubacine.cu/cinepobre
[vii] www.cubacine.cu/festivalsantiagoalvarez/index.html
[viii] http://www.cinelatinoamericano.org/ocal/directorios.aspx?cod=8&par=2
[ix] www.olffi.com/...
Alison Klayman wrote to say "I know you said at least two films, but I wanted specifically to alert you to the fact that my film "The 100 Years Show" is also playing in the Panorama Documental sections (same as Pj Letofsky's film). "The 100 Years Show" is about 100-year old Cuban-American artist Carmen Herrera, and was produced with RatPac (Brett Ratner) Documentary Films. I'll be attending the festival too.
Alex Mallis wrote in to say: "Our short narrative, "La Noche buena" (the first American-directed since the embargo) is also screening at the festival.
Original Blog:
At least two films by American filmmakers will screen this year at the Havana Film Festival, whose official name is Festival de Cine Nuevo Latinamericano. As the Centerpiece Film, Bob Yari, producer of almost 50 films, will screen his second directed film “Papa” about Ernest Hemingway. It can be called “the first [official or legal] American film made in Havana in the last fifty years”, though underground films have been made (e.g., “Love & Suicide”). “Papa” is being sold at Afm by Elias Axume’s Premiere Entertainment.
Doc filmmaker Pj Letofsky will also be screening his film “ Tarkovsky: Time Within Time” which just premiered at the Sao Paolo Film Festival.
Many U.S. citizens are now interested in going to Havana. To give an in-depth look at Cuba’s film business, I am publishing a [long] chapter of what I hope will soon be published, my book on Iberoamerican film business. I will also be publishing another [shorter] interview here soon with Havana Film Festival Director, Ivan Giroud.
Cuba (Chapter Seven)
Officially the Republic of Cuba, or in Spanish, República de Cuba, the nation is comprised of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. To the north of Cuba lies the United States; the Bahamas are to the northeast, México to the west, the Cayman Islands and Jamaica to the south, and Haiti and the Dominican Republic are to the southeast.
Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean, and with over 11 million inhabitants.
Cuba is undergoing a transition into a market, entrepreneurial economy under the Presidency of Raul Castro. With this transition, the cinema industry is also undergoing great changes. The state mandated organization, Icaic, which has been running the cinema industry, is now under scrutiny. New legislation concerning the film industry is slowly underway as a result of discussions ongoing within the film community. Hopefully the establishment of diplomatic relations will the U.S. last October will propel changes, though without lifting the embargo, it may not.
History of Cinema of Cuba
Cuba’s elite has always stayed in touch with the latest in culture as it developed in Europe during the Spanish colonial era. Cuba’s tradition of cinema dates back to 1897 when the Lumiére Brothers representative from France stopped in Havana to show their films on a tour of the Antilles Islands, México, Venezuela, and the Guineas. Cuba’s particular style of cinema, called the “Cinema of the Greater Antilles”, evolved from the theater of melodrama and comedy and from the radio dramas of Felix B. Caignet, all of which formed the popular melodramas and comedies we still see today.
Mexican coproductions and U.S. filmmakers escaping the monopolistic Edison came to Cuba as well as to California in the early days of film. Federico Garcia Lorca arrived in Cuba in 1930 with a screenplay, “Voyage of the Moon”, and a print of “Un Chien Andalou” hoping to break from the Paris-Berlin monopoly, but his plans never took shape. Many films from Spain, México, Argentina and Uruguay also played in Cuba. Some leading Cuban actors had a strong presence in México and Argentina. Musicians such as Ernesto Lecuona, Bola de Nieve and Rita Montaner performed in movies in several countries.
Cuba, along with Mexico and Argentina, has the most developed cinema culture of Latin America. At its most prosperous, it had the third largest number of theaters in Latin America until the special period when Ussr withdrew its support. Today it has 39 movie theaters. Three of them, including the Yara in Havana, had been built especially for 3D in the 1950s.
Movie going is one of Cuba’s national pastimes, rating perhaps as high as baseball. The average Cuban sees one and a half films a year. However, the lack of international appeal for most of its comedies and melodramas has held its international growth in check up to today. That is now changing.
The international nature of Cuban cinema was consciously defined after the Revolution of 1959 when the Institute for Cuban Art and Industry Cinematography (Icaic) was created by Fidel Castro and entrusted to his university classmate, Alfredo Guevara. The law creating Icaic was incorporated into the Cuban Constitution itself just three months after the Revolution and was an important part of the Nuevo Cine Latinoamerico, a movement throughout Latin America as the Latin American nations threw off their dictatorships. Film, according to this law, is "the most powerful and provocative form of artistic expression, and the most direct and widespread vehicle for education and bringing ideas to the public.”
Cinema was created for theatrical exhibition, for individuals and groups to share in smaller collectives, and for television.
The law ordaining Icaic to control every cinematographic activity created no further rules about financing, about submitting, reading and approving project proposals or regarding any required time frames. Icaic functions very internally with no outside surveillance.
Actually it is possible to make films without Icaic participation, the point is that without Icaic a film cannot get national distribution.
Over the past decade Icaic has loosened its monopolistic administration. Every sector and every level of cinema is discussing the concept of a new Law of Cinema with the government’s interest in formalizing as law a more inclusive infrastructure with more transparent rules and regulations.
Under the leadership of Raul Castro, the island has been undergoing a gradual economic reform process allowing entrepreneurs to license their own businesses after decades of state monopoly. The measures include the authorization of self-employment in more than 200 small trades and activities. According to the government, there are currently 442,000 registered as “self-employed”. The Castro administration hopes for this emerging sector to absorb over a million state workers to be laid off in the coming years.[ii]
In October 2014, the state closed down many private cinemas which had emerged avowing to the love of cinema of the people. Many were 3D “salons” in homes or in separate rooms in restaurants. Authorities pressed for "order, discipline and obedience" in the growing small business sector. Needless to say, the films shown were pirated and not licensed by the rights holders. Nor was there ever any official licensing to privately owned theaters (yet).
However, these could provide a good source of taxation. It needs to be decided what shall be taxed, how tax monies should be apportioned for film funding, film education, what tax incentives the government might offer, how distribution will be subsidized, how archives may be maintained and presented, how to regulate screenings, dvd, TV and online platforms, what cash incentives might bring in production from the outside, what joint ventures within the Caribbean might be developed and how Icaic is approaching and incorporating the changing environment. The Director of Icaic, Robert Smith de Castro. is facing more challenges than its previous longtime Director, Alfredo Guevera, ever faced when the government provided everything. Now it must find answers from its neighbors and its own internal producers and procedures.
In general, funding a film, renting equipment and shooting in Cuba all need to be approved by Icaic. This has changed somewhat as other players have come to take a role, like Rtv Commercial, which is in fact the production company of Cuban National Television.
Rtv Commercial coproduced the newest Cuban hit, “Conducta” (“Behavior”) with Icaic. It premiered at Ficg 2014 (Guadalajara International Film Festival) and played at Tiff 2014 and other festivals such as the Málaga Spanish Film Festival 2014 where it won five awards.
New Developments in Cuban Cinema
In 2014 there were 14 productions and coproductions made, compared to seven in 2009 and 4 in 2000 according to FnCl and Ocal, databases of Latin American film.
At Cannes’ Cinema du Monde in May 2014 and in San Sebastian’s Coproduction Forum, “ August” (“Agosto”) was one of 15 projects selected to be seen and discussed by the international community of sales, distribution and financial executives. Directed by Armando Capó Ramos and produced by La Feria Producciones’ Marcella Esquivel, it is a coproduction between Costa Rica and Cuba. It will shoot next year in Havana and is now raising funds through crowdfunding. Also featured among the 15 in San Sebastian was “Wolfdog” (“Hombre entre perro y lobo”) directed by Irene Gutiérrez and produced by El Viaje Films, a Spain-Cuba coproduction.
Seeking modes of financing outside of government funding began in 2002 with the Festival of New Filmmakers showcasing projects was created by young people outside the Icaic system. As a result of the 2002 event, five years later, a funding mechanism called Hacienda Cine was created by pulling productions from Icaic Cuban television into centers and foundations that have other areas for audiovisual production. Pitch sessions for each selected entity were set up. The prize for production services worth 20,000 Convertible Cuban Pesos (equivalent to Us $20,000) was set up by Icaic Production. There are currently also smaller groups creating smaller formats, scientific or otherwise who are fomenting alternative forms of financing as well.
Lia Rodriguez Nieto is an attorney who was mentored by and worked fourteen years, until his death, with Camilo Vives, Icaic’s head of production, first as an attorney and then as a producer. She has now taken charge of the industry section at the Havana Film Festival which Vives began in 2009. She and Antonio López, recently produced a Cuba-Panama-France coproduction “ El Acompañante” (“The Companion”) directed by Pavel Giroud. She states that over the last five to seven years, private (not state institutional) productions have co-existed with institutional production. However, it would be important for independent producers to have a more regulated and confident relationship with Icaic in a more normalized fashion in order to have easier access to filming permits, forms of financing, banking relations, coproduction treaties, and a number of other elements which are essential to film production.
Rebeca Chávez is a director and a member of one of the groups pushing for a new cinema law which will, in principle, establish a new system incorporating the democratic participation of all people in the business, including techs, writers, directors, producers, actors, etc. and where all will have a democratically designed access to funds. In1984 she began her career as documentary director and her work has been given different national and international awards. She is the second woman in Cuba who has made feature films. She has taught several seminars on theory and practice of documentary cinema and on the Cuban experience in the genre in different institutions in the United States, Puerto Rico, England and Spain. She has worked as advisor for scripts of documentaries and feature films.
It is most important that the state has the will to make these changes, and it has stated it is open to changing the laws. Omar González who succeeded Alfredo Guevara as the head of the Icaic was replaced in 2013 by 30 year Icaic employee Roberto Smith de Castro who is now faced with reorganizing Icaic and implementing new laws which are yet to be formulated. He is considered to be a patient and attentive man who listens and will work to incorporate the diverse opinions into a new working reality.
The son of the famed director Daniel Diaz Torres whose controversial film “Alicia en el pueblo de Maravillas” (“Alice in the City of Wonders”) in 1991 was so critical of the bureaucracy of the government at the time of the Soviet collapse that it caused the resignation of Icaic’s director Espinosa, independent producer Daniel Diaz Ravelo points out that the independent producer is neither legal nor illegal but exists in a sort of limbo, free to produce whatever he or she wants but needing legal sanctions to access necessary permits, equipment, etc. And a filmmaker has no bank account so fiscal responsibility is difficult. One must get a certificate from Icaic but there is no registration rule on how this is to be done.
And it gets more complicated. It is difficult to raise a Us$400,000 budget without networking with filmmakers from other countries and yet travel is not easy for Cubans. They can travel -- Cuba no longer has a problem with that -– but often they cannot get the visa required from the country they want or need to travel to. Daniel’s father had a problem in traveling to find financing for his last film, “La Pelicula de Ana” (“Ana's Movie”), from former producers of his films. It did receive some funding from Icaic and from former funding friend, Icestorm in Germany, and a loan from Ibermedia. Unfortunately Daniel Diaz Torres, Sr. recently died an early death and did not see the fruits of his labor in the 2013 Havana premiere.
The new generation today in Cuba is highly independent; it knows that diversity of film subjects and of filmmakers is key to Cuban cinema today and it is finding diverse sources of financing and distribution. It needs more information as well because everything depends upon contacts. Cineastes traveling to Cuba will find a vibrant group open to coproducing.
2015 marks the eighth year of the Havana Film Festival’s Works in Progress. The Post Production Award, Nuestra América Primera Copia, is an international competition for films from Latin America and from Cuba, with no restrictions; films can be produced by Icaic or independently. For example, in 2013 awards went to four films, one from Chile, “I’m Not Lorena” (“No Soy Lorena”), which premiered at Tiff 2014; one from Argentina, “La Salada”, which premiered at the San Sebastian International Film Festival 2014 and Tiff 2014; and two from Cuba -- one Icaic film, “His Wedding Dress” (“Vestido de novia”), and the independent, “Venice” which was also Tiff 2014.
Thanks to an initiative by La Muestra, a group of Cuban production companies (including several independent ones), once a year support is awarded to four or five projects by young filmmakers. The independent film “Melaza” by Carlos Lechuga with the 5ta Avenida Productions premiered on October 3, 2013.
Rubén Padrón Astorga, writing for On Cuba [iii], November-December 2013 [1] writes:
The best prospects for our cinema today emerged like an earthquake in late April of this year, when Kiki Álvarez, the director of “Jirafas”, “La ola” and “Marina” and “Venezia”, initiated a debate on the problems that the country has with two vital filmmaking processes (production and distribution). Close to 60 audiovisual makers responded with a meeting where they formed a Filmmakers Committee to represent the rest of the country’s professionals.
Soon after its creation, the Committee announced that its objectives included ensuring the active participation of Cuban filmmakers in every decision that was made about [our] cinema, and protecting and developing its production at the industrial and independent levels. At this time, they are working together with Icaic and the Ministry of Culture to pass a decree-law defining the autonomous audiovisual creator, which would legitimize filmmakers as a legal concept, with full rights to exercise their profession. However, the decree-law, which was drafted seven years ago and ratified by the most recent Uneac Congress, was rewritten by the Filmmakers Committee so that it is not limited to recognizing audiovisual practice as individual work, but as collective, and so that it legally protects independent producers.
This committee, together with the so-called Ministry of Culture Temporary Working Group for the Transformation of Icaic, is actively participating in drawing up a diagnosis of Cuban cinema’s problems, which will be followed with the drafting of policies and actions for solving those problems. This step will clear the way for the long-term creation of a comprehensive film law. This law, which would involve widening the scope of the law passed in 1959 for Icaic’s founding, or drafting a new one, would include the creation of a film commission that would support production and make it viable; a promotion fund that would be governed by an arts council, and to which all independent and institutional artists could aspire; financial incentives that would promote the support of private and state companies and sponsors; and a general legal framework that conceives of cinema systemically, inspired by the useful experiences that have taken place in other countries in the region, such as Colombia, Argentina, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic.
A convocation of cinema directors was held May 4, 2013 in Strawberry and Chocolate Cultural Center, Havana to address the need to participate in all plans and activities planned for Cuban cinema. The meeting chose a working group composed of Enrique Kiki Álvarez, Enrique Colina, Rebeca Chávez Lourdes de los Santos, Daniel Diaz Ravelo, Pavel Giroud, Magda González Grau, Inti Herrera, Senel Paz, Fernando Perez, Manuel Perez and Pedro L. Rodríguez.
The main objective of this group is to represent the filmmakers at all levels and events, promote and ensure the active participation of the same in all decisions and projects that relate to Cuban cinema, and strive for the protection and development of these arts and industries and their makers, which is our right and duty as protagonists of this art. At its first meeting, the group reached the following conclusions and agreements (verbatim):
1 -. We recognize the Cuban Film Institute and the Film Industry (Icaic) as the rector of the Cuban film industry state agency; born with the revolution and its long history is a legacy that belongs to all filmmakers. At the same time, we believe that the problems and projections of Cuban cinema today do not concern only the Icaic, but also other institutions and institutional groups or independently involved in their production, without whose help and commitment is not possible to achieve meaningful and lasting solutions. For that reason, its reorganization and promotion can not be done only in the context of this organism.
2 -. We understand the Cuban film produced through institutional, independent mechanisms, co-production with third or mixed formulas, and as filmmakers to all creators, technicians and Cuban specialists of these arts and industries that do their work inside or outside the institutions , whatever they may be aesthetic, content or affinity group. Consequently, it is imperative the adoption of Decree Law Media Creator recognition. This decree should be enriched with all additional legal supplements necessary.
3 -. We consider essential enacting a Film Law, whose production and given all participate and to be the legal body to order and protect the artistic and economic activity in the country.
4 -. We consider it important to study and implement a Film Development Fund, to which all authors in accessing equal rights and conditions, and open call to an independent jury whose selection parameter is the quality and feasibility of the whole project.
5 -. At this stage, the filmmakers give priority to the organization and remodeling of the methods of production and realization of works, the concept that these are, first and last instance being essentially the way we express ourselves and connect with the public. Similarly, we propose a systemic boost our activity covering the organization and remodeling of the forms of production, distribution, exhibition and national and international projection of Cuban cinema.
6 -. Start work, reviewing and updating the document "Proposals for a renewal of Cuban cinema", adopted at the Seventh Congress of the Uneac in 2008. As progress is made, they will be sharing all the proposals with the filmmakers.
7 -. Exchanging proposals and views with the State Commission working on the development of proposals for the transformation of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry.
8 -. To express our deep concern for all matters concerning international relations and Cuban cinema projection, which was a revolutionary vanguard movement in the Latin American and global context. We strive for a quick recovery and exchange relationships with filmmakers from Latin America and the world, and the continuity of the Festival of New Latin American Cinema, in its next edition turns 35.
9 -. This representation group performed their work in ongoing dialogue and communication with all filmmakers through regular meetings, which shall have the power to ratify or renew the group members, making decisions of common interest and to identify priorities and lines of job.
Filmmakers Group in the Assembly elected Cuban Filmmakers Saturday May 4 at the Centro Cultural Fresa y Chocolate, after its first meeting on May 8.
Havana, May 8, 2013. This was a verbatim article in Cubarte Magazine. [iv]
Festivals/ Markets
In 1979 Icaic created the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema aka Havana Film Festival as a way to disseminate its ethical convictions about developing film that was nonconformist, irreverent, critical of social injustice and rebellious against the pressures of the market across the continent. The event hosted over 600 filmmakers from Latin America and had as presidents of juries Gabriel García Márquez (Fiction ) and Santiago Álvarez (Documentaries and Cartoons.) The Coral Grand Prize winners were Geraldo Sarno (“Colonel Delmiro Gouveia”, Brazil) and Sergio Giral (“Maluala”, Cuba), in Fiction, Patricio Guzmán (“The Battle of Chile: the Struggle a People Without Arms”, Chile), Documentary, and Juan Padrón (“Elpidio Valdés”, Cuba) in Animation.
However, the contradiction of Icaic’s exercising a central control over maverick innovations is obvious since it controlled the production criteria and the right to decide what type of film was convenient to make and what was not.
An official competition of unpublished scripts for feature films is held by International Festival of New Latin American Cinema for authors from Latin America and the Caribbean for original scripts (no literary adaptations), written in Spanish and with Latin American themes. Scripts whose production rights have been transferred to third parties are not eligible. [v]
Icaic also supports the Festival Internacional de Cine Pobre de Humberto Solas[vi] for low budget films and Festival Internacional de Documentales “Santiago Alvarez in Memoriam”[vii].
Muestra Joven is a festival for Cuban youth with premiere fiction, doc and animated films. It has collateral activities of debates about the films in the festivals, master classes, meetings about contemporary issues and themes in the audiovisual community, workshps and onferences, poster exhibitions and homages.
In April 2014 the Mediateque of Women Directors, based in Cuba formally affiliated with The Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival in creating the the Caribbean Film Market. The project is also in association with The Foundation for Global Democracy and Development of the Dominican Republic, The Association for The Development of Art and Commercial Cinematography of Guadalupe, The Foundation for New Latinamerican Cinema, The Regional and International Film Festival of Guadalupe and the Mediateque of Women Directors.
Education
Icaic was in charge of training and promotion of talented young people not only in cinema but in other arts like music for which it created the Experimental Sound Group.
Isa
Most of the new independent filmmakers are young graduates of the Higher Art Institute’s (Isa) Faculty of Audiovisual Communication Media and its provincial affiliates. The University of Arts of Cuba - (Isa), Instituto Superior de Arte - was established on September 1, 1976 by the Cuban government as a school for the arts. Its original structure had three schools: Music, Visual Arts, and Performing Arts. At present the Isa has four schools, the previous three and the one for Arts and Audiovisual Communication Media. There are also four teaching schools in the provinces, one in Camagüey, two in Holguín and one in Santiago de Cuba. Isa offers pre-degree and post-degree courses, as well as a wide spectrum of brief and extension courses, including preparation for Cuban and foreign professors for a degree of Doctor on Sciences in Art. Predegree education has increased to five careers: Music, Visual Arts, Theatre Arts, Dance Arts and Arts and Audiovisual Communication Media. In 1996, the Isa established the National Award of Artistic Teaching, conceived for recognizing a lifework devoted to arts teaching.
Eictv
Eictv, the International School of Cinema and Television was founded December 15, 1986 at the Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana with the support of then-President Fidel Castro on the initiative of Latin American cultural figures such as Argentine director, “Father of the New Latin American Cinema”, Fernando Birri, Julio and Gabo and Colombian Nobel Prize winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez who donated his prize money to establish the school.. It is located in San Antonio de los Baños near Havana, on land donated by the Cuban government.
Hundreds of young students from all over Latin America have studied direction, script, photography and edition. Since its founding , 810 students have graduated and it has become one of the region’s most important and well-grounded cultural projects.
Students pay 15,000 euros (about $19,700) to attend for the full three-year program. The fee includes food, lodging and equipment. Tuition income accounts for just 15 percent of the school's budget. Funding comes from international agencies such as Ibermedia; countries including Brazil, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Panama; and regional organizations like the Alba alliance of leftist Latin American nations.
For the past eight years, Nuevas Miradas, organized by the Eictv Production Department has held its presentations at the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema for bringing new projects to the attention of international professionals.
Also in the late 1980s, Cuba created the Third World Film School to train students from various third world countries in the art of filmmaking.
Film Funding
Icaic has been the only body to fund films. How the selection of what films would receive funding has never been a public matter.
There are no instruments for private companies or individuals to contribute to film production in Cuba yet. There are however, international funds that may help finance films, such as Hubert Bals Fund from The Netherlands, World Cinema Fund from Germany, Fonds Sud from France, the Norwegian Fund, Sor Fond, Acp, etc. The best actively kept lists are found in Ocal[viii] and Online Film Financing [ix].
Coproduction with Cuba
As early as 1948 coproductions were common between Cuba and México. During the 70s and 80s Russian coproductions included Mikhail Kalatozov’s classic 1964 film “I Am Cuba” (“Soy Cuba”). Spain has played a role in coproducing Latin American and Cuban films since the 30s but in the 1990s it began to invest more heavily. In 1997 Ibermedia was created for the purpose of promoting coproduction between Spain and Latin American countries. Cuba is one of the fourteen countries involved in this organization.
In addition, Cuba has bilateral coproduction treaties with Italy, Canada, Venezuela, Spain and Chile. So far nothing has resulted from the Chile accord.
Two examples of Cuban coproduced films are Humberto Solás’ 1982 film “Cecilia” (Cuba - Spain) and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío’s 1992 Academy Award-nominated “Strawberry and Chocolate” (“Fresa y chocolate”) (Cuba – México – Spain - U.S.).
In September 2013 at San Sebastian International Film Festival’s 2nd Europe-Latin America Coproduction Forum, “The Companion”/ "El Acompañante" won the Best Project Award sponsored by Spain’s Audiovisual Producers’ Rights Management Association Egeda and carrying a 10,000 Euros (Us$13,000) cash award.
This is the third feature of Giroud after “The Silly Age” and “Omerta”. It is a coproduction of Cuba, Venezuela’s NativaPro Cinematográfica and France’s Tu Vas Voir owned by Edgard Tenembaum who produced Walter Salles’ “The Motorcycle Diaries”. The film also obtained the collaboration of Programa Ibermedia and was selected for Cinemas du Monde.
Pavel Giroud is one of the most promising of young Cuban filmmakers today. “The Companion”/ "El Acompañante" is set in 1988 Havana and tells the story of the friendship which develops between Horacio Romero, a Cuban boxer who fails a drug test and a defiant patient at an AIDS center under military rule for whom Romero must serve as a warden or, in Cuban government parlance, a “companion”. Playing the role of Horacio is Yotuel Romero (Latin Grammy Award-winning and founding member of Cuban rap group Orishas). Orishas is one of the world’s most critically hailed Latin-urban artists. The co-protagonist is Cuban actor Armando Miguel Gómez who has received international recognition for his role in the recent films "Behavior”/ “Conducta" and “Melaza”. International sales are handled by the Brazil-based international sales agency, Habanero, which, coincidently is owned by Cuban Alfredo Calvino and Brazilian Patricial Martin who handle such outstanding films as “Juan on the Dead”, Carlos Lechuga’s “Melaza”, Sebastian Cordero’s “Pescador” and Francisco Franco’s “Last Call”. Habanero also sponsors distribution awards at Ficg and Ventana Sur’s Primer Corte, a showcase for pictures in post-production. All the updated information about these films, including festivals and awards is available at: www.habanerofilmsales.com.
Case Study of the Producer, Inti Hererra
Cuba’s first English language film, “Eating the Sun”, a coproduction with Canada, is being produced by Inti Herrera who also is heading the new night spot of avant garde popular entertainment, La Fabrica de Arte Cubano.
Inti Herrera, formerly of 5ta Avenida Productions and I first met in 2003 through the international sales agent Alfredo Calvino whose then-company Latinofusion was selling Inti’s first fiction feature, “Viva Cuba”, a road movie of two kids traveling across Cuba in search of one’s father.
Inti graduated Eictv and worked for a long time as an independent producer of documentaries.
In 2009, when Camilo Vives, Icaic’s head of production created the Industry Sector of the Havana Film Festival Inti became its director and managed it until 2010. In 2010 when he was still running the industry space he invited me to speak about New Media, and I spoke of Peter Broderick who was then invited to do a workshop at Eictv.
As an executive producer, Inti must raise financing from the development through the completion of film projects. Each project is of course different from the last. He and Alejandro Brugués were originally discussing working on a different sort of film, “Melaza”, but put it on hold and in 2010 and 2011 he worked instead on the commercial film, “Juan of the Dead”, which is the most exhibited film of Cuba.
“Juan of the Dead”, Cuba’s first truly independent movie, a zombie horror comedy was coproduced in 2011 by Spain's La Zanfoña Producciones, where it was post-produced, and Cuba's first independent production company Producciones de la 5ta Avenida which also produced “Personal Belongings” in 2006 and “Melaza” in 2012. The film was written and directed by Alejandro Brugués (“Personal Belongings”). It was executive produced by Inti Herrera, Claudia Calviño and Gervasio Iglesias.
The film was represented for international sales by Latinofusion, a Guadalajara based company sponsored by Universidad de Guadalajara and managed by Alfredo Calvino. It was shown in more than 50 festivals worldwide, winning 10 audience awards and the Spanish Film Academy’s Goya Award of the for best Iberoamerican film. It sold to 42 territories.
“Juan of the Dead” distributors:
Argentina (Condor/ Mirada), Bolivia (Londra Films P&D), Brazil (Imovision), Canada (A-z Films), Chile (Arcadia Films), Germany (Pandastorm Pictures), Hong Kong and Macau (Sundream Motion Pictures), Hungary (Ads Service), Italy ( Moviemax Media Group Spa), Japan (Fine Films), Latin American Pay TV (HBO Latin America), México and Central America (Canana), Netherlands (Filmfreak), Norway (Tromso International Film Festival), Puerto Rico (Wiesner), Russia and Cis territories (Cinema Prestige), Spain (Avalon), Switzerland (Ascot Elite), U.K and Ireland (Metrodome), U.S.(Theatrical Distributor Outsider Pictures, all other rights Focus World)
Today Inti is working with a new director, Alfredo Ureta on the Canadian coproduction and the first Cuban film in English. “Eating the Sun” is about a Canadian-Cuban couple who decides to live in Cuba. Before settling in they make a tour of the country and become involved in a psychological thriller. The Canadian producer is Gordon Weiske of Canwood Entertainment. They are discussing the male lead role with Kris Holden-Ried. The goal is to find new markets for this film, markets which Cuba has not targeted before.
Top 10 Films of Cuba is a selection of my own:
1. “Memorias del subdesarrollo” (“Memories of Underdevelopment”) (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, 1968)
2. “Lucia” (Humberto Solás, 1969)
3. “Vampiros en La Habana” (“Vampires in Havana”) (Juan Padrón, 1983)
4. “Soy Cuba” (“I am Cuba”) ( Mikhail Kalatozov, 1964)
5. “La bella del Alhambra” (“The beauty of the Alhambra”) (Enrique Pineda Barnet, 1989)
6. “Fresa y Chocolate” (“Strawberry and Chocolate”) (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío, 1993)
7. “Lista de Espera” (“The waiting list”) (Juan Carlos Tabío, 2000)
8. “Havana Suite” (“Suite Havana”) (Fernando Pérez, 2003)
9. “Juan of the Dead” (Alejandro Brugués, 2011)
10. “Melaza” (Carlos Lechuga, 2013)
[1] http://www.oncubamagazine.com/magazine/for-independent-and-industrial-cuban-cinema/
Cubacine. El Portal del Cine Cubano. http://www.cubacine.cu/index.html.
[ii] http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=99785#sthash.yCWbyCcU.dpuf
[iii] http://oncubamagazine.com/magazine-articles/for-independent-and-industrial-cuban-cinema/ Cubacine. El Portal del Cine Cubano. http://www.cubacine.cu/index.html.
[iv] http://www.cubarte.cult.cu/periodico/opinion/cineastas-cubanos-por-el-cine-cubano/24423.html
[v] http://www.cinelatinoamericano.org/ocal/direct.aspx?cod=1234
[vi] www.festivalcinepobre.org , www.cubacine.cu/cinepobre
[vii] www.cubacine.cu/festivalsantiagoalvarez/index.html
[viii] http://www.cinelatinoamericano.org/ocal/directorios.aspx?cod=8&par=2
[ix] www.olffi.com/...
- 11/19/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Exclusive: The trinidad+tobago film festival and its Caribbean Film Mart will launch five works-in-progress at the Buenos Aires market next month.
Ventana Caribe stems from a mutual desire to foster strong ties between the Caribbean and Latin American industries.
Javier Fernandez, the artistic coordinator and head of the Blood Window genre market that takes place during Ventana Sur, attended the trinidad+tobago film festival in late September.
“We at Ventana Sur were honoured to form a joint venture with Caribbean Film Mart at its inaugural edition to shed light on the Caribbean region,” Fernandez said.
“With the specific aim of fostering connections between Latin America and the Caribbean, Ventana Sur will launch, at its seventh edition, Ventana Caribe, for projects in post-production.
“There will be co-production meetings, a video library and a panel presentation with a ttff representative. We hope this collaboration lasts long and offers support to both our cinema industries.”
“We have been...
Ventana Caribe stems from a mutual desire to foster strong ties between the Caribbean and Latin American industries.
Javier Fernandez, the artistic coordinator and head of the Blood Window genre market that takes place during Ventana Sur, attended the trinidad+tobago film festival in late September.
“We at Ventana Sur were honoured to form a joint venture with Caribbean Film Mart at its inaugural edition to shed light on the Caribbean region,” Fernandez said.
“With the specific aim of fostering connections between Latin America and the Caribbean, Ventana Sur will launch, at its seventh edition, Ventana Caribe, for projects in post-production.
“There will be co-production meetings, a video library and a panel presentation with a ttff representative. We hope this collaboration lasts long and offers support to both our cinema industries.”
“We have been...
- 11/16/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Be Prepared to Get Mean at the Nitehawk Cinema
Ferdinando Baldi’s Get Mean (1975), which stars Tony Anthony, Lloyd Battista, Raf Baldassarre, Diana Lorys, David Dreyer, Mirta Miller, Sherman ‘Big Train’ Bergman, and Raul Castro, will screen Monday, October 26, 2015 at 7:30 pm at the Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Following the screening, there will be a scheduled Q&A with actor Tony Anthony and Executive ...
Hnn | Horrornews.net - Official News Site...
Ferdinando Baldi’s Get Mean (1975), which stars Tony Anthony, Lloyd Battista, Raf Baldassarre, Diana Lorys, David Dreyer, Mirta Miller, Sherman ‘Big Train’ Bergman, and Raul Castro, will screen Monday, October 26, 2015 at 7:30 pm at the Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Following the screening, there will be a scheduled Q&A with actor Tony Anthony and Executive ...
Hnn | Horrornews.net - Official News Site...
- 10/20/2015
- by Jonathan Stryker
- Horror News
Conan O’Brien reportedly spent the weekend filming a new episode of his late-night talk show in Cuba. A U.S. talk show host hasn’t visited the Caribbean country’s shores since Jack Paar interviewed Fidel Castro in 1959. The U.S. has maintained a strict embargo against Cuba since 1960. U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro reestablished diplomatic relations between the two countries in December 2014, relaxing restrictions on travel and trade. Also Read: ‘SNL’s’ Greatest Hosts: Beloved Tina Fey, Game-Changing Justin Timberlake, Classic Richard Pryor O’Brien is the first American celebrity to travel to...
- 2/16/2015
- by Joe Otterson
- The Wrap
On December 17, El Dia de St. Lazaro, something extraordinary happened! Equivalent to the “Fall of the Wall”, President Barak Obama simultaneously with Raul Castro of Cuba announced that diplomatic relations between our two countries was being restored; the last of the Cuban Five imprisoned for 15 years in the U.S. for spying (on Cuban terrorists based in Miami) would be returned to Cuba in exchange for Alan Gross (imprisoned for 5 years for bringing Cuba forbidden internet technology), and an unnamed CIA agent incarcerated for 20 years, along with other Cuban political prisoners; And that this would be the first step in finally normalizing relations between Cuba and the U.S.A.
Read More: Sydney Levine's First Impression at the 2014 Havana Film Festival
As my friends and I were driving from Trinidad to visit a sugar plantation which was the basis for the Cuban wealth of the 19th century, we got a message that in one hour Raul Castro would make the formal announcement and President Obama’s address would also be broadcast.
As we entered the former plantation home, now a restaurant, we heard the singing and jubilation coming from the bar and immediately joined in as the only Americans to share the joy; the Scotch (not rum) was flowing and the dancing and singing continued until the address came on the television.
I realized that in my 15 years of coming to Cuba, this was the moment I had been waiting for. We watched Raul Castro explain, and we watched President Obama explain, and as I watched the faces of the beautiful Cuban people as they listened, some with tears and others with smiles, all with great intensity, I understood the meaning of “rapprochement”. We turned toward each other in pure happiness and felt ourselves united after 55 years of separation.
This is The Place and I am here.
We knew when the Mercosur Heads of State were gathered under tight security at the Hotel Nacional during the first days of the festival that something was afoot. We heard that not only were they planning a possible counter boycott of U.S. in their upcoming May meeting, shutting out U.S. from attending, but the Hotel Nacional’s guest roster included the name of an American who was negotiating something much bigger.
Some speak of the idealism behind this long-wished-for move of U.S.; others speak of the economic necessity. Looking back at my most incredible year of traveling around Latin America, I understand that with the new expansion of the Panama Canal enabling the huge Chinese container ships to pass through, the most convenient next-stop-port for them is Havana. And from Havana, the most convenient port is not Cartagena or Cali in Colombia but New Orleans! And so we may see the rapprochement bring back the glorious days when music and adventure were equated with the Louisiana-Cuban connection. My hope is that the values held so dear in Cuba spread to U.S. and that we Americans don’t spread our U.S. arrogance when we land on the shores of the country which has managed 55 years with no help from us.
There is still more to this tale of reunion, but I am sworn to secrecy for the moment. But you will read it in papers other than this blog. Thirteen months of secret negotiations took place in Canada with the help of the Pope. At a wonderful dinner at a newly opened up Cuban-Russian restaurant on the Malecon, “Nostrovia”, our friend the restaurant owner, Rolando Almirante, whom we know as a documentary filmmaker and host of a weekly Cuban TV show, introduced us to a Canadian and an American both of whom had been involved with the long negotiations. Together we toasted the event with vodka.
To return to the Hotel Nacional and the festival:
Exceptionally quiet for those political reasons, it was also quiet because but there was none of the active debating over the new Law of Cinema which so excitedly animated the festival here last year. There was a low-key conference about the law of cinema and audiovisual culture held by the Cuban Association of Cinema Press with Fipresci and other invited guests to discuss and express opinions about whether most countries by now have a law of cinema, whether developing countries are planning on establishing a law of cinema, whether a law of cinema is necessary for a country aspiring to a higher level of culture for its population, and in what way would a law contribute to the development of production and to the appreciation of cinema. But you do not see everyone gathering in groups to discuss these ideas as they did last year.
Some of last year’s top filmmakers – producers like Ivonne Cotorruelo and Claudia Calvino are so busy preparing their next coproductions that they have no time for such discussions. Others shrug and resignedly express Cuban forbearance as usual.
I asked my friends what is the status of the law being established here in Cuba where only one law of cinema exists, which is the establishment of Icaic, the government institute that determines everything about film behind closed doors. Their answer was “Nothing”. Nothing has changed since last year. Discussions are continuing, and there will be a law established, but not yet…and so I learned that once the first big step is taken here, the next steps are very slow to follow.
So here is what happened on Day 3, December 7 of the my festival:
Our friend Pascal Tessaud whose short from France “City of Lights” brought him to Los Angeles several years ago, had a screening of his new film “Brooklyn”. Its premiere screening here (It premiered in Cannes’ Acid section earlier this year) was to an odd audience of older people. No doubt they were expecting a film about “Brooklyn” (which used to be the name of a bar in Central Havana) but instead got a film about a young Afro-Swiss rapper-girl named “Brooklyn” who enters the rap scene of Paris, made up of Arabs and Africans.
“Afronorteamericano” films were also spotlighted with Oscar Micheaux’s “Assassination in Harlem” (1935), “Within our Gates” (1920), “Body and Soul” (1926) starring Paul Robeson, “Underworld” (1937), “Swing” (1938), and Spencer William’s “The Blood of Jesus” (1941).
Also showing were North American documentaries “Citizen Koch”, “The Notorious Mr. Bout”, “The Overnighters”, and an homage to filmmaker, Eugene Jarecki (“Capturing the Friedmans” 2003, “Arbitrage” 2012, “The Trials of Henry Kissinger” 2002, “Why We Fight” 2006, Emmy Award winning “Reagan” 2011 and 2012’s “The House I Live In” about the war against drugs which along with “Why We Fight” won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at Sundance) and a retrospective of Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck. Trinidad & Tobago’s annual showcase featured “Creole Soup” from Guadalupe and “Legends of Ska” by American DJ and ska specialist Brad Klein. And of course there was the latest crop of new films from Latin America and the newest films from Cuba, and much, much more.
Today Benecio del Toro, a regular at this festival, won the Coral of Honor for his role as “Che” in Steven Soderbergh’s movies and for his role as the narcotraffiker, Pablo Escobar in the NBC miniseries “Drug Wars: The Camarena Story” and here now, as Escobar in “Escobar: Paradise Lost” directed by the Italian Andrea Di Stefano. For Benecio, Cuba is “a dream come true”.
Day 4, December 8.
There seems to be a trend toward films about children. The prize winning film “Conducta” and Cuba’s submission for Academy Award Nomination as Best Foreign Language Film has already won awards around the world including The Coral for Best Picture and Best Actor here in Havana. This young boy loses every government protection because of his family’s dysfunctions and yet he maintains the spirit of survival and transcendence. Another story from Argentina, Poland and Colombia, France and Germany, “Refugiado” directed by Diego Lerman, also deals with a child who returns home from a birthday party to find his mother unconscious on the floor. The mother then flees seeking a safe place for them and he experiences fear in all the formerly secure places he has known. “Gente de Bien” a Colombia-France coproduction directed by Franco Lolli also explores the world of a young boy, abandoned by his mother and placed in the disheveled home of his impecunious father, who is taken in by a teacher who means well but whose family refuses to accept him. This little kid reaches his limit when his dog dies; but thrown back to his caring if off-kilter father, you get the feeling he too will be all right after all.
A couple of new gay films showed: Cuba’s “Vestido de Novia” was so crowded I could not get near it. Lines around blocks and blocks to get into the 1,000 seat theater were incredible proof of how much Cubans love cinema. Winner of last year’s prize for a work-in-progress, “Vestido de Novia” (“Wedding Dress) will soon be on the festival circuit. Two years ago, at Guadalajara’s coproduction market “Cuatro Lunas” by Sergio Tovar Velarde was being pitched. A sort of primer on gayness, four stories tell the tale of 1) discovery of one’s gayness, 2) first gay love, 3) first gay betrayal of love and 4) love at a mature stage of life. Producer Fernando … hung out with us a bit as we all come from L.A. and have friends in common.
What – aside from the new rapprochement between Cuba and U.S.A. – is “good for the Jews”? A wonderful film from Uruguay, Spain and Germany, “Mr. Kaplan” directed by Alvaro Brechner and produced by my most helpful friend Mariana Secco, and my German friends Roman Paul and Gerhard Meixner (Isa: Memento) brought a new understanding for the good and the bad in our recent history. Almost a comedy and almost a tragedy, the film’s resolution served to transform our propensity to see and judge in black and white.
Read More: Sydney Levine's First Impression at the 2014 Havana Film Festival
As my friends and I were driving from Trinidad to visit a sugar plantation which was the basis for the Cuban wealth of the 19th century, we got a message that in one hour Raul Castro would make the formal announcement and President Obama’s address would also be broadcast.
As we entered the former plantation home, now a restaurant, we heard the singing and jubilation coming from the bar and immediately joined in as the only Americans to share the joy; the Scotch (not rum) was flowing and the dancing and singing continued until the address came on the television.
I realized that in my 15 years of coming to Cuba, this was the moment I had been waiting for. We watched Raul Castro explain, and we watched President Obama explain, and as I watched the faces of the beautiful Cuban people as they listened, some with tears and others with smiles, all with great intensity, I understood the meaning of “rapprochement”. We turned toward each other in pure happiness and felt ourselves united after 55 years of separation.
This is The Place and I am here.
We knew when the Mercosur Heads of State were gathered under tight security at the Hotel Nacional during the first days of the festival that something was afoot. We heard that not only were they planning a possible counter boycott of U.S. in their upcoming May meeting, shutting out U.S. from attending, but the Hotel Nacional’s guest roster included the name of an American who was negotiating something much bigger.
Some speak of the idealism behind this long-wished-for move of U.S.; others speak of the economic necessity. Looking back at my most incredible year of traveling around Latin America, I understand that with the new expansion of the Panama Canal enabling the huge Chinese container ships to pass through, the most convenient next-stop-port for them is Havana. And from Havana, the most convenient port is not Cartagena or Cali in Colombia but New Orleans! And so we may see the rapprochement bring back the glorious days when music and adventure were equated with the Louisiana-Cuban connection. My hope is that the values held so dear in Cuba spread to U.S. and that we Americans don’t spread our U.S. arrogance when we land on the shores of the country which has managed 55 years with no help from us.
There is still more to this tale of reunion, but I am sworn to secrecy for the moment. But you will read it in papers other than this blog. Thirteen months of secret negotiations took place in Canada with the help of the Pope. At a wonderful dinner at a newly opened up Cuban-Russian restaurant on the Malecon, “Nostrovia”, our friend the restaurant owner, Rolando Almirante, whom we know as a documentary filmmaker and host of a weekly Cuban TV show, introduced us to a Canadian and an American both of whom had been involved with the long negotiations. Together we toasted the event with vodka.
To return to the Hotel Nacional and the festival:
Exceptionally quiet for those political reasons, it was also quiet because but there was none of the active debating over the new Law of Cinema which so excitedly animated the festival here last year. There was a low-key conference about the law of cinema and audiovisual culture held by the Cuban Association of Cinema Press with Fipresci and other invited guests to discuss and express opinions about whether most countries by now have a law of cinema, whether developing countries are planning on establishing a law of cinema, whether a law of cinema is necessary for a country aspiring to a higher level of culture for its population, and in what way would a law contribute to the development of production and to the appreciation of cinema. But you do not see everyone gathering in groups to discuss these ideas as they did last year.
Some of last year’s top filmmakers – producers like Ivonne Cotorruelo and Claudia Calvino are so busy preparing their next coproductions that they have no time for such discussions. Others shrug and resignedly express Cuban forbearance as usual.
I asked my friends what is the status of the law being established here in Cuba where only one law of cinema exists, which is the establishment of Icaic, the government institute that determines everything about film behind closed doors. Their answer was “Nothing”. Nothing has changed since last year. Discussions are continuing, and there will be a law established, but not yet…and so I learned that once the first big step is taken here, the next steps are very slow to follow.
So here is what happened on Day 3, December 7 of the my festival:
Our friend Pascal Tessaud whose short from France “City of Lights” brought him to Los Angeles several years ago, had a screening of his new film “Brooklyn”. Its premiere screening here (It premiered in Cannes’ Acid section earlier this year) was to an odd audience of older people. No doubt they were expecting a film about “Brooklyn” (which used to be the name of a bar in Central Havana) but instead got a film about a young Afro-Swiss rapper-girl named “Brooklyn” who enters the rap scene of Paris, made up of Arabs and Africans.
“Afronorteamericano” films were also spotlighted with Oscar Micheaux’s “Assassination in Harlem” (1935), “Within our Gates” (1920), “Body and Soul” (1926) starring Paul Robeson, “Underworld” (1937), “Swing” (1938), and Spencer William’s “The Blood of Jesus” (1941).
Also showing were North American documentaries “Citizen Koch”, “The Notorious Mr. Bout”, “The Overnighters”, and an homage to filmmaker, Eugene Jarecki (“Capturing the Friedmans” 2003, “Arbitrage” 2012, “The Trials of Henry Kissinger” 2002, “Why We Fight” 2006, Emmy Award winning “Reagan” 2011 and 2012’s “The House I Live In” about the war against drugs which along with “Why We Fight” won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at Sundance) and a retrospective of Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck. Trinidad & Tobago’s annual showcase featured “Creole Soup” from Guadalupe and “Legends of Ska” by American DJ and ska specialist Brad Klein. And of course there was the latest crop of new films from Latin America and the newest films from Cuba, and much, much more.
Today Benecio del Toro, a regular at this festival, won the Coral of Honor for his role as “Che” in Steven Soderbergh’s movies and for his role as the narcotraffiker, Pablo Escobar in the NBC miniseries “Drug Wars: The Camarena Story” and here now, as Escobar in “Escobar: Paradise Lost” directed by the Italian Andrea Di Stefano. For Benecio, Cuba is “a dream come true”.
Day 4, December 8.
There seems to be a trend toward films about children. The prize winning film “Conducta” and Cuba’s submission for Academy Award Nomination as Best Foreign Language Film has already won awards around the world including The Coral for Best Picture and Best Actor here in Havana. This young boy loses every government protection because of his family’s dysfunctions and yet he maintains the spirit of survival and transcendence. Another story from Argentina, Poland and Colombia, France and Germany, “Refugiado” directed by Diego Lerman, also deals with a child who returns home from a birthday party to find his mother unconscious on the floor. The mother then flees seeking a safe place for them and he experiences fear in all the formerly secure places he has known. “Gente de Bien” a Colombia-France coproduction directed by Franco Lolli also explores the world of a young boy, abandoned by his mother and placed in the disheveled home of his impecunious father, who is taken in by a teacher who means well but whose family refuses to accept him. This little kid reaches his limit when his dog dies; but thrown back to his caring if off-kilter father, you get the feeling he too will be all right after all.
A couple of new gay films showed: Cuba’s “Vestido de Novia” was so crowded I could not get near it. Lines around blocks and blocks to get into the 1,000 seat theater were incredible proof of how much Cubans love cinema. Winner of last year’s prize for a work-in-progress, “Vestido de Novia” (“Wedding Dress) will soon be on the festival circuit. Two years ago, at Guadalajara’s coproduction market “Cuatro Lunas” by Sergio Tovar Velarde was being pitched. A sort of primer on gayness, four stories tell the tale of 1) discovery of one’s gayness, 2) first gay love, 3) first gay betrayal of love and 4) love at a mature stage of life. Producer Fernando … hung out with us a bit as we all come from L.A. and have friends in common.
What – aside from the new rapprochement between Cuba and U.S.A. – is “good for the Jews”? A wonderful film from Uruguay, Spain and Germany, “Mr. Kaplan” directed by Alvaro Brechner and produced by my most helpful friend Mariana Secco, and my German friends Roman Paul and Gerhard Meixner (Isa: Memento) brought a new understanding for the good and the bad in our recent history. Almost a comedy and almost a tragedy, the film’s resolution served to transform our propensity to see and judge in black and white.
- 12/27/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” didn’t even get past its cold open before addressing the biggest news story in entertainment in years: The Sony Hack Attack, which led to “The Interview” being pulled from theaters.
Mike Myers returned to his old stomping grounds, reprising the role of “Austin Powers” villain Dr. Evil, who told Sony and North Korea to get ready because he’s going to “take you to school.”
Dr. Evil started in on the very premise of terrorism surrounding something as trivial as a movie. “It’s easy to kill a movie,” he said. “Just move it to January.
Mike Myers returned to his old stomping grounds, reprising the role of “Austin Powers” villain Dr. Evil, who told Sony and North Korea to get ready because he’s going to “take you to school.”
Dr. Evil started in on the very premise of terrorism surrounding something as trivial as a movie. “It’s easy to kill a movie,” he said. “Just move it to January.
- 12/21/2014
- by Jethro Nededog
- The Wrap
The first day of the Havana Film Festival I was at the Hotel Nacional, registering for the festival, seeing familiar faces from Cuba and the Caribbean and old friends from the USA: Oleg Vidov and his wife Joan Borsten were there as Oleg who had starred in 3 Soviet films made in Cuba was an honored guest. Havana regulars were there: Marlene Dermer, director of Laliff and Laurie Anne Schag, VP of International Documentary Association. Laurie Anne not only gives tours of Cuba with her colleague Geo Darder, but this year she also screened her film at the festival, the documentary Oshun’s 11 about a tour of the Yoruba Orisha religion in Cuba.
Harlan Jacobson of Talk Cinema and Sarah Miller brought in tours as well and we went together to the Acapulco theater to see the Puerto Rican romantic heist movie Hope, Despair (La Espera Desespera) by writer/ director Coraly Santaliz Perez (♀) . Im Global’s Bonnie Voland the VP of Marketing was there with with Stuart Ford and his friend. Bonnie gave a great presentation on marketing which I will report on in these pages soon. Im Global and Mundial, their their new joint venture with Gael Garcia Bernal, showed The Butler and Bolivar: The Liberator. This new Mundial title was oddly programmed at the same time as the Venezuelan version of the exact same story, Bolivar, el hombre de las dificultades by Luis Alberto Lamata, a Venezuelan-Cuban-Spanish co-production. I wonder if both cinemas were packed or if one was more popular than the other. Publicity and marketing at this festival is a strange and unknown process, though I know Caroline Libresco-produced and Grace Lee-directed American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs brought in audience after a radio interview with Caroline and Grace had aired.
Ruby Rich was also here giving a very interesting presentation on Queer Cinema whose historical roots (Todd Haynes, Derek Jarman) were mostly unknown to the young Cuban audience. She is an old hand in Havana, having attended the festival in the heady days of the 1970s. The theme of homosexuality was prevalent in many of the films this year. A government Institute of Human Sexuality has been established under the leadership of the daughter of Raul Castro, and Cuba has apologized for its past treatment of homosexuality. This reversal has opened the doors of freedom. Filmmaker Enrique Pineda Barnet, the writer of Soy Cuba, the great Russian-Cuban epic, used to have to work underground with his personal homosexual films (After his fame was established with La Bella del Alhambra he was “allowed” to work underground). He is now able to be officially accepted with his works like Verde, Verde which showed in the Festival. Venezuelan Miguel Ferrari’s Azul y no tan rosa was feted for his treatment of this little-discussed issues in his home country.
Enrique Pineda Barnet’s meditation on what it means to be gay in Havana (Verde, Verde) marks his first film in years to be accepted into the official festival.
The U.S. invitees who give workshops here and at the international film school Eictv makes me wonder who is making the connections and how. Last year Hawk Koch and Annette Benning were here and created a support mechanism of AMPAS with the festival. This year, aside from Oleg Vidov Bonnie Voland and Ruby Rich, other American invitees giving workshops included Robert Kraft (Avatar, Titanic, Moulin Rouge) on film music was obviously brought in by the Academy. Mike S. Ryan, an independent filmmaker from New York was the big surprise as we never knew his role as producer of such films as Todd Solondz’s Palindromes and Life During Wartime, Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy and Ira Sach’s Forty Shades of Blue, Hal Hartley’s Fay Grim and many more including Liberty Kid, the winner of HBO’s Latino Film Festival 2007 and Bela Tarr’s final film, The Turin Horse. His newly finished film is Last Weekend starring Patricia Clarkson and Zachary Booth. This Independent Spirit “Producer of the Year” winner was here working with filmmakers at Eictv, the international film school and also did a presentation in the festival conference series.
Im Global’s Stuart Ford and friend with Bonnie Voland at the Hotel Nacional
Oliver Stone, a favorite of Cuba since his HBO films Comandante and Persona Non Grata, brought in a History Channel doc series called The Untold History of the United States, made up basically of interviews with key people in the eras of World War II: Roosevelt, Truman and Wallace [sic],The Bomb, Cold War: Truman, Wallace [sic], Stalin, Churchill and the Bomb, The 1950s: Eisenhower, The Bomb and The Third World.
A fruit vendor on our walk to the Infanta Theater
Laurie Anne Schag secured radio promotion for Caroline Libresco of Sundance Institute and Grace Lee, here as a producer and director to show their new film: American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs. The audience at the Infanta Theater was mainly brought in by the radio show but also included us, the friends, and the Trinidad + Tobago delegation. The Q&A sessions were informed and informative as the Cubans and Americans discussed the notion of Revolution as put forward by Grace Lee Boggs a 90+ year old community organizer who came out of Barnard College in the 40s to Detroit and has never abandoned her Marxist Socialist standards but recognizes that social revolution can only succeed if the people themselves are revolutionized from grassroots action and within the individuals carrying out the action. Without transformation from within, action to change the government is only a rebellion. So what about the Cuban Revolution? The discussions were very enlightening and the audience felt that this film was new and interesting.
I attended the first of four screenings of Caribbean films hosted by ttff (Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival) at the Infanta Theater. My readers know from my blogs of last November how astonished and moved I was by the population makeup of Trinidad + Tobago and of the Caribbean in general. This area of small islands, formerly colonized by Spanish, French, German and Dutch has created a particular island culture society whose film culture is taking the next evolutionary step. Forming a marketplace and a place of cultural exchange among its constituents, ttff’s director Bruce Paddington is working with Cuba’s national film organization, Icaic’s Luis Notario to develop a real film market for Caribbean film. Apropos, Bruce was also showing his documentary on the Revolution in Grenada, called Foreward Ever: The Killing of a Revolution, which was the motto of Maurice Bishop the elected president who was forcefully removed and murdered by the opposition when the U.S. army under the Commander-in-Chief, President Ronald Reagan sent in forces presumably to protect the American medical students attending medical school there in 1983.
Twenty-five Cubans were also killed in the fighting which ensued on this otherwise always peaceful island where now a reconciliation among neighbors is still in process.
The other four screenings of ttff were varied and interesting in their unique Caribbean points of view. The opening film, Poetry is an Island: Derek Walcott was a portrait of the St. Lucia poet and Nobel Prize winner for literature. The short film, Passage, by Kareem Mortimer, a filmmaker I have known for many years from the Bahamas and Trinidad, was astounding in its recall of one of the most degrading aspects of the slave trade, as black Haitians huddled in the tiny hold of a decrepit fishing boat as they were smuggled into Florida from Haiti. Another short, Auntie, from the Barbados by Lisa Harewood told of a current social issue in which “Aunts” take care of young children while their single mothers go abroad to earn money for their care. As the child in this movie reaches her teen years, her mother sends for her which leaves a grieving single woman “Auntie” alone with no thanks and no child to care for in her older years. Other shorts included The Gardener by Jo Henriquez from Aruba and One Good Deed by Juliette McCawley from Trinidad + Tobago.
The window on Caribbean issues was opened wide. The Barbados comedy Payday in which two friends decide to leave their job as security guards and open their own business was made on a shoe string but gave a picture of how the youth are living today with ganga, grinding dancing, sexy encounters told with a sweet mischievous naughtiness. Songs of Redemption, by Miquel Galofre and Amanda Sans, winner of ttff’s Jury Prize and the Audience Award goes inside what had been Kingston Jamaica’s worst prison until the new prison director introduced classes to educate the prisoners, including a music rehabilition program which goes beyond all expectation… Truly redeeming.
Trinidad + Tobago filmmakers Karim Mortimer from Bahamas, Lisa Harewood from Barbaddos, Alex (Egyptian/ Austrian / Bahamanian business partner of Karim, Shakira Bourne
The film program was suspended for a full day in which all cultural and entertainment events throughout Cuba were cancelled to observe a national day of mourning for Nelson Mandela.
Harlan Jacobson of Talk Cinema and Sarah Miller brought in tours as well and we went together to the Acapulco theater to see the Puerto Rican romantic heist movie Hope, Despair (La Espera Desespera) by writer/ director Coraly Santaliz Perez (♀) . Im Global’s Bonnie Voland the VP of Marketing was there with with Stuart Ford and his friend. Bonnie gave a great presentation on marketing which I will report on in these pages soon. Im Global and Mundial, their their new joint venture with Gael Garcia Bernal, showed The Butler and Bolivar: The Liberator. This new Mundial title was oddly programmed at the same time as the Venezuelan version of the exact same story, Bolivar, el hombre de las dificultades by Luis Alberto Lamata, a Venezuelan-Cuban-Spanish co-production. I wonder if both cinemas were packed or if one was more popular than the other. Publicity and marketing at this festival is a strange and unknown process, though I know Caroline Libresco-produced and Grace Lee-directed American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs brought in audience after a radio interview with Caroline and Grace had aired.
Ruby Rich was also here giving a very interesting presentation on Queer Cinema whose historical roots (Todd Haynes, Derek Jarman) were mostly unknown to the young Cuban audience. She is an old hand in Havana, having attended the festival in the heady days of the 1970s. The theme of homosexuality was prevalent in many of the films this year. A government Institute of Human Sexuality has been established under the leadership of the daughter of Raul Castro, and Cuba has apologized for its past treatment of homosexuality. This reversal has opened the doors of freedom. Filmmaker Enrique Pineda Barnet, the writer of Soy Cuba, the great Russian-Cuban epic, used to have to work underground with his personal homosexual films (After his fame was established with La Bella del Alhambra he was “allowed” to work underground). He is now able to be officially accepted with his works like Verde, Verde which showed in the Festival. Venezuelan Miguel Ferrari’s Azul y no tan rosa was feted for his treatment of this little-discussed issues in his home country.
Enrique Pineda Barnet’s meditation on what it means to be gay in Havana (Verde, Verde) marks his first film in years to be accepted into the official festival.
The U.S. invitees who give workshops here and at the international film school Eictv makes me wonder who is making the connections and how. Last year Hawk Koch and Annette Benning were here and created a support mechanism of AMPAS with the festival. This year, aside from Oleg Vidov Bonnie Voland and Ruby Rich, other American invitees giving workshops included Robert Kraft (Avatar, Titanic, Moulin Rouge) on film music was obviously brought in by the Academy. Mike S. Ryan, an independent filmmaker from New York was the big surprise as we never knew his role as producer of such films as Todd Solondz’s Palindromes and Life During Wartime, Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy and Ira Sach’s Forty Shades of Blue, Hal Hartley’s Fay Grim and many more including Liberty Kid, the winner of HBO’s Latino Film Festival 2007 and Bela Tarr’s final film, The Turin Horse. His newly finished film is Last Weekend starring Patricia Clarkson and Zachary Booth. This Independent Spirit “Producer of the Year” winner was here working with filmmakers at Eictv, the international film school and also did a presentation in the festival conference series.
Im Global’s Stuart Ford and friend with Bonnie Voland at the Hotel Nacional
Oliver Stone, a favorite of Cuba since his HBO films Comandante and Persona Non Grata, brought in a History Channel doc series called The Untold History of the United States, made up basically of interviews with key people in the eras of World War II: Roosevelt, Truman and Wallace [sic],The Bomb, Cold War: Truman, Wallace [sic], Stalin, Churchill and the Bomb, The 1950s: Eisenhower, The Bomb and The Third World.
A fruit vendor on our walk to the Infanta Theater
Laurie Anne Schag secured radio promotion for Caroline Libresco of Sundance Institute and Grace Lee, here as a producer and director to show their new film: American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs. The audience at the Infanta Theater was mainly brought in by the radio show but also included us, the friends, and the Trinidad + Tobago delegation. The Q&A sessions were informed and informative as the Cubans and Americans discussed the notion of Revolution as put forward by Grace Lee Boggs a 90+ year old community organizer who came out of Barnard College in the 40s to Detroit and has never abandoned her Marxist Socialist standards but recognizes that social revolution can only succeed if the people themselves are revolutionized from grassroots action and within the individuals carrying out the action. Without transformation from within, action to change the government is only a rebellion. So what about the Cuban Revolution? The discussions were very enlightening and the audience felt that this film was new and interesting.
I attended the first of four screenings of Caribbean films hosted by ttff (Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival) at the Infanta Theater. My readers know from my blogs of last November how astonished and moved I was by the population makeup of Trinidad + Tobago and of the Caribbean in general. This area of small islands, formerly colonized by Spanish, French, German and Dutch has created a particular island culture society whose film culture is taking the next evolutionary step. Forming a marketplace and a place of cultural exchange among its constituents, ttff’s director Bruce Paddington is working with Cuba’s national film organization, Icaic’s Luis Notario to develop a real film market for Caribbean film. Apropos, Bruce was also showing his documentary on the Revolution in Grenada, called Foreward Ever: The Killing of a Revolution, which was the motto of Maurice Bishop the elected president who was forcefully removed and murdered by the opposition when the U.S. army under the Commander-in-Chief, President Ronald Reagan sent in forces presumably to protect the American medical students attending medical school there in 1983.
Twenty-five Cubans were also killed in the fighting which ensued on this otherwise always peaceful island where now a reconciliation among neighbors is still in process.
The other four screenings of ttff were varied and interesting in their unique Caribbean points of view. The opening film, Poetry is an Island: Derek Walcott was a portrait of the St. Lucia poet and Nobel Prize winner for literature. The short film, Passage, by Kareem Mortimer, a filmmaker I have known for many years from the Bahamas and Trinidad, was astounding in its recall of one of the most degrading aspects of the slave trade, as black Haitians huddled in the tiny hold of a decrepit fishing boat as they were smuggled into Florida from Haiti. Another short, Auntie, from the Barbados by Lisa Harewood told of a current social issue in which “Aunts” take care of young children while their single mothers go abroad to earn money for their care. As the child in this movie reaches her teen years, her mother sends for her which leaves a grieving single woman “Auntie” alone with no thanks and no child to care for in her older years. Other shorts included The Gardener by Jo Henriquez from Aruba and One Good Deed by Juliette McCawley from Trinidad + Tobago.
The window on Caribbean issues was opened wide. The Barbados comedy Payday in which two friends decide to leave their job as security guards and open their own business was made on a shoe string but gave a picture of how the youth are living today with ganga, grinding dancing, sexy encounters told with a sweet mischievous naughtiness. Songs of Redemption, by Miquel Galofre and Amanda Sans, winner of ttff’s Jury Prize and the Audience Award goes inside what had been Kingston Jamaica’s worst prison until the new prison director introduced classes to educate the prisoners, including a music rehabilition program which goes beyond all expectation… Truly redeeming.
Trinidad + Tobago filmmakers Karim Mortimer from Bahamas, Lisa Harewood from Barbaddos, Alex (Egyptian/ Austrian / Bahamanian business partner of Karim, Shakira Bourne
The film program was suspended for a full day in which all cultural and entertainment events throughout Cuba were cancelled to observe a national day of mourning for Nelson Mandela.
- 1/9/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
I arrived at the new Cuban airport where deep dark eyes of the customs officer looked into my soul and asked me on what I was bringing in, what I planned to do while in Cuba, had I ever been in Cuba before, what electronic equipment I was bringing in. I answered all and mentioned the computer, the iPad, the iPod, the cel phone and the camera. He asked what I would take pictures of – a puzzling question asked with no trace of friendly teasing and I was puzzled and answered (all in Spanish) whatever took my fancy, places, people…”Aves?”, he asked (“Birds?”) which really confused me, but I answered sure, birds, flowers, “las cosas bonitas” and he let me go. Maybe he considered Aves code language for Satellites. Anyway, I was relieved as I took a cab into Vedado, the “Forbidden” neighborhood just outside of Central Havana where my apartment is just across the street from the Hotel Nacional, the Havana Film Festival headquarters.
Cuba Journal: Nuevo? Cine? Latinoamericano?
The 35th Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano (aka Havana Film Festival), December 5 - 15th held its Opening Night at The Karl Marx Theater. Opening night film, Gloria, was preceded by an impressive performance of Cuba’s Contemporary Dance Company which was followed by a tribute to the animator Juan Padron whose cartoons are so loved that as film clips were played, the audience would finish lines in unison and would yell the well known punchlines to jokes with great joy. They displayed great cultural cohesion derived from the days of limited television stations when everyone watched the same shows.
Cuba had the third largest number of theaters in Latin America. Three theaters were devoted to 3D.
At the opening night, Ivan Giroud, the festival's new director memorialized the passing of the Festival's founding father, Alfredo Guevera, The National Cuban Film Institute, Icaic, also lost its head of production, Camilo Vives. And then, the death of Nelson Mandela, a very good friend of Cuba was announced. The audience stood and observed two minutes of silence. The next day they announced that all screenings would be canceled on day 3 as would all entertainment (music, dancing) throughout Cuba in a national day of mourning on the day of Mandela's funeral. After the funeral, everyone was talking of President Obama's handshake and conversation with Raul Castro who was quoted as saying Cuba would do all it could to have a rapprochment with the U.S. as long as they were treated with respect. As Cuba does not tell U.S. how to run its country, so they did not expect U.S. to tell them how to make its policy or run its country. But short of that Raul said Cuba was open to any and all discussion.
In an interview on the second da with Gloria’s male lead, Sergio Hernández, in Cuba for the first time, he was so moved by Cuba that the experience made him recall his Chilean identity before the regime of Augusto Pinochet drove him into exile. “The Cubans have a very strong spirit, a very affective manner of communicating. And they have lucid, clear-minded temperament. They constantly seem to be moving as well,” he said.
He was sad at the realization of how much the Pinochet era had changed the character of the Chileans The movies which came after Pinochet’s ouster were “repetitive, recurrently telling of our sadness but very poorly told.” Forty years later, Chile is not the same. “Actually there is now a richer literature, more metaphorical. Currently in artistic and creative terms, cinema is more attractive. New developments in diverse currents are taking place.” Gloria shows this diversity. “Gloria also plays political themes. His own character is what Chileans call a pastel, someone who does not know how to compromise. He is a man who cannot free himself from his history to begin a life. He is weighed down by his established family and cannot transform himself from within.”
The actor who has worked in cinema, theater and television with such great directors as Costa-Gavras, Miguel Littin, Raul Ruiz, Ricardo Larrain, Gustavo Graef-Marino and Pablo Larraín says that the success of Gloria in festivals worldwide is a result of the type of cinema created by the director Sebastián Lelio. “He is very young, but he is a master of his craft. He has revolutionized cinematic language. His features have enormous credibility and the contexts of his stories are real spaces; there is nothing false, no lies and no pretense.”
To learn more about the Havana Film Festival visit Here. And stay tuned for more notes from Havana. It was a great experience!
Cuba Journal: Nuevo? Cine? Latinoamericano?
The 35th Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano (aka Havana Film Festival), December 5 - 15th held its Opening Night at The Karl Marx Theater. Opening night film, Gloria, was preceded by an impressive performance of Cuba’s Contemporary Dance Company which was followed by a tribute to the animator Juan Padron whose cartoons are so loved that as film clips were played, the audience would finish lines in unison and would yell the well known punchlines to jokes with great joy. They displayed great cultural cohesion derived from the days of limited television stations when everyone watched the same shows.
Cuba had the third largest number of theaters in Latin America. Three theaters were devoted to 3D.
At the opening night, Ivan Giroud, the festival's new director memorialized the passing of the Festival's founding father, Alfredo Guevera, The National Cuban Film Institute, Icaic, also lost its head of production, Camilo Vives. And then, the death of Nelson Mandela, a very good friend of Cuba was announced. The audience stood and observed two minutes of silence. The next day they announced that all screenings would be canceled on day 3 as would all entertainment (music, dancing) throughout Cuba in a national day of mourning on the day of Mandela's funeral. After the funeral, everyone was talking of President Obama's handshake and conversation with Raul Castro who was quoted as saying Cuba would do all it could to have a rapprochment with the U.S. as long as they were treated with respect. As Cuba does not tell U.S. how to run its country, so they did not expect U.S. to tell them how to make its policy or run its country. But short of that Raul said Cuba was open to any and all discussion.
In an interview on the second da with Gloria’s male lead, Sergio Hernández, in Cuba for the first time, he was so moved by Cuba that the experience made him recall his Chilean identity before the regime of Augusto Pinochet drove him into exile. “The Cubans have a very strong spirit, a very affective manner of communicating. And they have lucid, clear-minded temperament. They constantly seem to be moving as well,” he said.
He was sad at the realization of how much the Pinochet era had changed the character of the Chileans The movies which came after Pinochet’s ouster were “repetitive, recurrently telling of our sadness but very poorly told.” Forty years later, Chile is not the same. “Actually there is now a richer literature, more metaphorical. Currently in artistic and creative terms, cinema is more attractive. New developments in diverse currents are taking place.” Gloria shows this diversity. “Gloria also plays political themes. His own character is what Chileans call a pastel, someone who does not know how to compromise. He is a man who cannot free himself from his history to begin a life. He is weighed down by his established family and cannot transform himself from within.”
The actor who has worked in cinema, theater and television with such great directors as Costa-Gavras, Miguel Littin, Raul Ruiz, Ricardo Larrain, Gustavo Graef-Marino and Pablo Larraín says that the success of Gloria in festivals worldwide is a result of the type of cinema created by the director Sebastián Lelio. “He is very young, but he is a master of his craft. He has revolutionized cinematic language. His features have enormous credibility and the contexts of his stories are real spaces; there is nothing false, no lies and no pretense.”
To learn more about the Havana Film Festival visit Here. And stay tuned for more notes from Havana. It was a great experience!
- 12/26/2013
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-tx) sought to regain some of the conservative credibility he appeared to have lost when he praised Nelson Mandela on his Facebook page this week when he walked out of the South African leader's memorial service during Cuban President Raul Castro's speech. But unlike the Obama-Castro handshake seen around the world, it appears that no one caught Cruz's protest on camera.
- 12/11/2013
- by Matt Wilstein
- Mediaite - TV
Jon Stewart wants to say it once again: Comparing just about anyone to Adolf Hitler is hyperbolic. Stewart sang it from the hilltop on Tuesday’s “Daily Show” after cable news pundits — and Sen. John McCain — took issue with President Obama shaking hands with Cuban leader Raul Castro at Nelson Mandela’s funeral. Also read: Jon Stewart on Fox Commentator’s Brave Stance Against… the Pope (Video) “Obama had the audacity to greet another world leader with a gesture so meaningless you can train a Basset Hound to do it,” Stewart said. But McCain wondered why Obama would shake hands with the leader of.
- 12/11/2013
- by Tim Molloy
- The Wrap
Four Us presidents, royals, the pope, and leaders from over 90 countries gathered with South Africans today to celebrate the life of Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg. Famous faces, including South African actress Charlize Theron and Irish singer and activist Bono, were also in the crowd of thousands at Fnb Stadium. As the rain poured down, President Barack Obama gave one of the more memorable speeches of the four-hour memorial, thanking the people of South Africa for sharing Mandela with people of every race and walk of life around the world. The first black president of the United States struck a personal note during his address (seen above) saying people like he and Michelle are beneficiaries of the struggles of previous generations. But he also challenged those moved by Mandela's life to continue that progress and not just pay lip service to it. Obama said: "Around the world today, men and...
- 12/10/2013
- by Annie Gabillet
- Popsugar.com
As the world mourns the death, and celebrates the life, of Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg today, nearly one hundred heads of state gathered at Fnb stadium to pay their respects. To the strains of Kirk Franklin, President Obama greeted world leaders as he approached the podium, and in a gesture of what CNN's John King called "respect for the moment," made history by shaking hands with Cuban President Raul Castro.
- 12/10/2013
- by Tommy Christopher
- Mediaite - TV
Havana -- A dispute is brewing in Cuba over the estate of a prominent intellectual and close associate of the Castro brothers after authorities carried out a surprise search of his home.
Officials say they conducted an inventory of art, books, furniture and documents belonging to the late Alfredo Guevara, and three valuable paintings were determined to be missing.
His family members accuse authorities of carrying out an unjustified and intrusive weekend raid, breaking down doors, hauling away various items in trucks and refusing to explain their actions.
"We are very taken aback," granddaughter Claudia Guevara, an actress and model who lives in Mexico, told The Associated Press late Wednesday. "They entered our house without giving us prior warning, for no reason whatever and without us being in the country."
Alfredo Guevara was a filmmaker and longtime devoted communist with ties to Fidel and Raul Castro dating back to the...
Officials say they conducted an inventory of art, books, furniture and documents belonging to the late Alfredo Guevara, and three valuable paintings were determined to be missing.
His family members accuse authorities of carrying out an unjustified and intrusive weekend raid, breaking down doors, hauling away various items in trucks and refusing to explain their actions.
"We are very taken aback," granddaughter Claudia Guevara, an actress and model who lives in Mexico, told The Associated Press late Wednesday. "They entered our house without giving us prior warning, for no reason whatever and without us being in the country."
Alfredo Guevara was a filmmaker and longtime devoted communist with ties to Fidel and Raul Castro dating back to the...
- 7/5/2013
- by AP
- Huffington Post
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