Among Cuban filmmakers who are active, perhaps one of the most prolific is Juan Carlos Cremata. When asked how he can carry out many projects at the same time, he answered OnCuba naturally:
” I always have to be doing something, if not I die of boredom. There is an Italian saying that goes: “he who hesitates is lost ‘, and that happens to me. In fact, I like the creative process better than the finished work itself. When opening a play I get depressed, because I think I have to start over another project, but at the same time, I like that. I think that addiction is hereditary, because my family is like taht. My brothers and I grew up in that environment of creation, and if they take us out of it, we lose the vital breath. “
In recognition of his work, Cremata was recently invited by the Latin American Film Festival Vancouver as president of the jury. It is the first time the Cuban filmmaker leads the event, which takes place from August 30 through September 8.
Added to that honor there is a retrospective screening of his feature films including Nada (2001) and Viva Cuba (2005), funded by the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) and Chamaco (2011), which he shot independently.
Furthermore, Cremata told OnCuba about Leo Biaggide Blasys Bogliasco Fellowship, creative scholarship granted by the Bogliasco Foundation, an organization based in New York, and with close relations with the Liguria Center Studies, located in Italy.
It is the second time that the director of Oscuros rinocerontes enjaulados (1990) received this type of recognition: in 1996 he won the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, which allowed him to live and create for one year in New York City.
According to him, in the month he will stay in the Liguria Studies Center he aims to advance his next film: Faith of rats, and start a draft script which he has named Condom, about teenagers in Cuba.
“Faith of rats is a film that I love. It is a love story between a man and a woman today, specifically in a reformatory or penitentiary. I authored it along Onelio Fidel Lopez, a talented playwright who is writing good texts. I look forward to working with actors Yadier Fernández, Gilda Bello, and Rolando Brito “.
Meanwhile, Condom is also written between Cremata and Lopez, who conceived a pilot project. “It’s a teen movie. Cuba has made films for children, but for people from eleven to sixteen has not done much, except the series Puberty, by Mariela Castro, ” the filmmaker noted.
