The work by young artists Jorge Oliva (Havana 1979) rises with a voice of its own among uneven conceptual lines in Cuban contemporary silversmithing. His pieces, made out of silver and cooper, make us think of a spider because he knits with thin metal threads several shapes that make up bracelets, earrings, rings and all kinds of jewelry. His exquisite and original designs can change the opinion of those who think that silversmithing is not art. His pieces are adorned with precious and semiprecious gems. At first glance its work seems made with engraved threads or careful and subtle nets, mostly with silver 999, almost pureso it is more malleable when knitting. His hand skills when handling small pieces allows him moving at ease in bigger formats and his sculptures are praiseworthy and popular given their originality. Just as it has been with other artistic expressions throughout history, when observing Oliva’s work spectators realize that there is a lot of Cuban and foreign influences from any period, which has allowed him to consolidate his style and find his own code materialized in unique and valuable pieces. The filigrees he accomplishes remind us of those made thousand years ago by the...

For the third year in a row, a program of US documentaries under the name Closing Distances/Cerrando Distancias tours around Cuba. The event, organized by Alexandra Halkin, director of the Americas Media Initiative (AMI), non profit organization working with Cuban filmmakers, will take place until this Monday 14. As new, this year’s edition brings Simon Kilmurry, executive producer of the several times awarded television series POV (Point of View) by PBS, who, since his arrival in Cuba, has presented and debated on several Latin American movies that have been produced after his series, as for instance, Volver a la anormalidad, on which he debated with the public in Havana. The tour started on the last day of ICAIC’s 2014 Young Sample (ICAIC: Cuban Film Institute by its acronym in Spanish) and included a trip to the Isle of Youth and Pinar del Rio province, where they are right now to continue interacting with spectators. On the spring of 2012, AMI launched the tour of US documentaries with the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) of New York andthat was the first time this institution presented an official program in Cuba. Ever since, Closing Distances tours have screened six US documentaries, interacting...

Since 2003 Marisa Fernandez works as production coordinator for MEDIAPRO, one of the most important communication and audiovisual companies in Europe. She holds a degree on Spanish Philology and Audiovisual Communication and has developed a professional career as coordinator, script reader and producer for several companies and film festivals. She has taught several lectures for training curses and workshops on the production process in the cinema, ranging from the conception of an idea to the screening of films. OnCuba talked to this renowned producer during her recent stay in Havana, where she offered a workshop for young producers taking part in ICAIC’s 2014 Young Sample (ICAIC: Cuban Film Institute by its acronym in Spanish), which came to an end last Sunday. How did you come up with the idea of travelling to Cuba to share your experiences with young Cuban filmmakers? I metYumeyBesú, producer of the Sample, three years ago in a Latin American Film Festival in North America, where we both were juries. We kept in touch and he recently invited me to teach a workshop for sharing my knowledge and experience with young Cuban producers. I loved the idea because it is about advising the youngest who are...

By Cecilia Crespo When the extravagant detective, Pepe Carvalho, a creation by Spanish writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, coined the term auteur cooking, he never imagined that in Havana, Cuba, would do such justice to this innovative way of cooking. El Atelier, located in an old and fancy mansion in Vedado, is one of those restaurants that offer a wide symbiosis of culinary stylesincluding the characteristic deconstruction of auteur cooking: that of separating elements of a typical dish to cook it in an unusual way. Beyond the glamour and gourmet charm that define this concept, the restaurant was practically forced to adopt that trend due to the need for substituting ingredients, innovating and supplementing some shortages when elaborating complex dishes of the international cuisine. With a successful combination of prices and quality, this place is in an enviable geographic situation: just a few meters from Havana’s Seawalk and the Meliá Cohíba Hotel. According to Niurys Higuera Martínez, a whirl that turned into an entrepreneur, along with her brother, the place has hosted the family business for three centuries. It is a colonial house, one of the first built in Vedado which belonged to Senator Vázquez Bello, who also became president of...

Young but experienced Chilean-Danish photographer Manuel Alberto Claro arrived in Havana for the second time, for sharing his experiences in the cinema in a workshop at the recently concluded ICAIC’s 2014 Young Sample. He has worked with important directors from different European countries since he graduated from Milan’s European Design Institute. He has been in charge of the photography of many ads, documentaries and full length films like Melancholia and Nymphomania, the latest films by renowned filmmaker Lars Von Trier. In his career he has received several awards like La Camara de Oro in Cannes and the first prize in Venice Film Festival, among others. On his way out from the workshop, which he shared with his compatriot and documentary producer Pablo Insunza, he talked to OnCuba. You are a Chilean photographer that studied in Milan and has worked in Europe and New York but you haven’t worked in Latin America yet. Do you prefer European cinema or you haven’t had the chance to work in Latin America? The truth is I have had almost none working experience in Latin America. I was trained in Europe, the environment I have developed is mainly Danish; the Latin American influence came to...

With the title Diario del naufragio (Logbook of a shipwreck), young artist Frank Rodríguez Ventosa (F. Rodvent) exhibits a dozen pieces in different formats and techniques, which make up the main sample of the 13th edition of ICAIC’s Young Sample. Some of these pieces will become the awards to be presented to the winners of the event. Films such as Conducta impropia, Recibido en mal estado and El elegido will be exhibited until April 21 at the Gallery of the Fresa y Chocolate Cultural Center. Rodvent, who is an autodidact, is a member of the Hermanos Saiz Association (AHS by its acronym in Spanish) and stands out for his outstanding talent for drawing. In his work, he shows his personal vision of the world and the country where human beings and machines copulate, with diverse symbols and concepts. By means of chiaroscuros and clean strokes, which eventually make us recall Fabelo, he portrays men and machines in constant symbiosis with an aesthetics that gets close to futurism and science fiction. Perhaps this has to do with the first book he had in his hands when he decided to become an artist: A Treatise On Painting. by Leonardo Da Vinci. Perhaps...

Producer Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti tackled the issue of life after death to talk about life in his latest films Crematorio, en fin… el mal and Crematorio II Más allá del bien y del… mar. These films were premiered at the Chaplin Movie Theater during the second day of ICAIC’s Young Sample (ICAIC: Cuban Film Institute by its acronym in Spanish) and the screening was attended by a large crowd. On his way out, OnCuba talked with Cremata, also the director of Nada and El premio flaco, who devoted three years for the production of his latest short films, including the full length film Contigo pan y cebolla and some theater plays. It doesn’t begin as usual, it begins with the second film because it goes backwards, Cremata said. Juan Carlos Cremata, also the director of the several times awarded film Viva Cuba, noted: “At the beginning the idea was to make a full length film that included the three short films but then I decided to produce them separately. The first one lasts 32 minutes and the second one 26. I shoot the third one along with Orlando Manrulfo (Mariconchi), but I’m not satisfied with it so I will...

As an experiment, in the La Copa Commercial Center belonging to the TRD Caribe retail chain, Cubans can now pay in all areas with Cuban pesos and magnetic card. According to the official exchange rate of CADECA (1X25) this new method of payment was implemented, as a significant step to imminent monetary unification. In order to comply, step by step, the guideline No.55 of Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution is to take this experience as its effectiveness at all stores nationwide. The first two trials were done in Miramar, Playa municipality, since in the La Puntilla Mall, that belongs to CIMEX chain people can purchase the products in local currency , but only in the grocery, yet. Why is La Copa the first store in the country? , How did workers prepare to take on this new mode of payment? , How has the public received it? They were some of the questions answered by the directors of La Copa , who still observe the surprise of customers. Many were aware of the change for the promotional posters and the flyers, others surprised and almost skeptical. “The experiment was a directive from the TRD main...

Luisa María Jiménez is, unquestionably, one of the most popular Cuban actresses since she emerged in the artistic scenario more than three decades ago. She majored at the National School of Arts (ENA by its acronym in Spanish) and later on from the Higher Institute of the Arts (ISA by its acronym in Spanish). She has interpreted significant characters for theatre, television and cinema. At the age of eight she figured out she wanted to become an actress but her passion for body expression first led her towards dancing. Then, she went into acting and fell for it. This year, Gibara’s International Low-Budget Film Festival pays homage to her. According to the director of the event, Lester Hamlet, “Luisa is one of the last actresses that appeared in the world of Humberto Solas and she did it with enough strength to stay and to be remembered forever”. How do you take this homage at the Festival? I think I’m privileged. I didn’t expect it; to be honest, I no longer expect anything. I just go along with everyday events because that way I suffer less. It was a huge surprise, mainly because it has come in a particular moment in...

In May, filmmaker Lester Hamlet will start the shooting of his next movie Ya no es antes (It is no longer yesterday), based on the theatre piece Weekend in Bahía, by Alberto Pedro,and will only use two actors and one set. The plot focuses on performances by Violeta Rodríguez and Hugo Reyes as it develops from the moment the two characters, Mayra y Esteban, meet at the apartment of one of them. The film will last 90 minutes in real time and will have additional scenography. It is a coproduction between The Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC by its acronym in Spanish) and a Canadian company with which Lester produced his previous film Fabula. “Two people, a white limbo and promises looking for confirmation”, said its producer when referring to the synthesis of the film. Lester, also the director of Casa Vieja, talked to OnCuba about this “new and huge” challenge, as he definedit. What’s new in this version of Weekend en Bahía, a piece that will shortly become 30 years old? This piece by Alberto Pedro is one of the biggest successes of Cuban dramaturgy from the 80’s and early 90’s. It was applauded by the audience in the production...

Alejandro Gil states that “La emboscada”(The ambush)–next Cuban film to be premiered in the big screen, with which this filmmaker returns to the cinema– isn’t a war movie though its title may suggest so. About his latest production,the director of the film La pared commented to OnCuba: “In the film the most important thing is the resistance and mode of action of a group of people who are facing a difficult situation, from a human perspective that goes beyond war. Some of the main characters in this movie are interpreted by Patricio Wood, Tomás Cao, Caleb Casas and Armando Miguel Gómez. Gil affirmed that at first, during the 90’s, the script of La emboscada was prepared for a short fiction film produced by Estudios Cinematográficos de las FAR, today TRIMAGEN, but the Special Period put it to a stop. “Time went by until I presented the plot to producer and scriptwriter Ernesto Daranas, who said, back then, that the story could be much more than a short fiction film. From that moment on, Daranas devoted himself to the creation of a comprehensive story with different perspectives rather focused on a human approach of the conflict than on the epic. Then...

Any conversation with Mario Coyula turns into a great class of planning, design, style and good taste. Regarding taste, in the words of the architect, recipient of countless awards, Cubans in terms of construction, have lost a lot. The critic and university professor is passionate about Havana, especially of his native Vedado neighborhood, which according to him “it still looks good even though they have done everything against it”. He gets excited when sharing his experiences in the preservation of the city and when he speaks of modern architecture that looks after the classics, the Art Deco and the importance of reasoning and feeling the structures. OnCuba spoke with the National Prize for Cultural Heritage recipient on various interesting topics. What do you think of the real estate market in Cuba today? It is still a very new field in our country. It was limited for many years to foreign sector with the particularity that they were new buildings to rent apartments. Initially they were conceived for selling but they remained only for rent, which I think killed the business because most people want to buy rather than rent. The other detrimental thing that I found was the fact that...

Cuban cinema? A law for the cinematographic industry? Independent or freelance cinema? What’s happening in the Cuban cinematographic industry? Pavel Giroud answers these questions during an interview with OnCuba. Previously we had published Talking about Playing Lecuona with Pavel Giroud. What’s your opinion about the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC by its acronym in Spanish) and the possibilities it offers to young filmmakers? ICAIC has moved from stagnation to uncertainty. There is a new leadership by a man that has grown within the institution and therefore there is an affectionate relationship with the building, its dwellers and the cinema; however, this is still a state-owned organization and it is subject to the state’s norms and regulations. So far there are positive signs, he is open for dialogue, and at least we can be heard. I like that idea of doors being open, but I don’t agree with the so-called possibilities. During the past decade the Institute has opened doors because it had to. The founding Cuban filmmakers of ICAIC are most gone. Some have passed away, others are living abroad and many just gave up. The few that are still there are suffering from the uncertainty I mentioned before. It is...

Singer-songwriter Kelvis Ochoa will present this Saturday 8 at El Sauce his latest album Dolor con amor se cura (Love heals pain) recorded with BisMusic label. March is promising to be a memorable month for this artist because his followers will be able to enjoy a documentary on his life and work that will be displayed from Thursday 13 on in the most important movies of the country. The piece, called Yo se de unlugar (I know a place), was produced by Swedish filmmaker Beat Borter and includes two tracks from the new album. Kelvis doesn’t rest, he is also setting a new musical theater project, he has already finished writing two songs that will make up another record and he maintains his usual presentations in Havana. He amazes his audience with his sweeping melodies, with fun and passionate lyrics, and with his ability to improvise. With lots of future plans, jovial and positive like his sons he talked with OnCuba about his life, his music and his new record. What is music for Kelvis? Most of all it is an aid to soothe the world and to help people understand me, for them to know my ideas and how...

Filmmaker Miguel Coyula just published his first novel Mar rojo, mal azul (Red sea, blue evil). He has different talents: he writes, edits, shoots, writes music, and draws like few people do every shot of his films. He is autonomous, versatile, multitask; he is some sort of man from the renaissance like some people call him. For his second film Memorias del desarrollo (Memories of development) he received about 20 international awards though he acknowledges that his greatest recognition is that the audience understands his piece and interprets it their own way. The book, launched just a few days ago at the Spanish Cultural Center in Miami, compliments a science fiction trilogy he had initiated in 2004 with Cucarachas rojas (Red cockroaches), his first full-length film and ends with Corazon azul (Blue heart), a film still in production. Coyula froze his youth and the experiences of his friends in this book he wrote in 1999, which also includes some of his drawings at that time. It seems that he gets bored of resting, he travels everywhere with his camera like an image hunter, a gift he portrays in his texts where every sentence is a shot and every paragraph is...

Arturo Santana is one of the most prolific Cuban audiovisual artists. In his 25-year-long career he has produced about 200 materials including video clips, short films, ads and documentaries. But he doesn’t settle for this and states that there’s still a lot more for him to do. He finds himself in a new creative stage, more ambitious and complex. The shooting of his first fiction full-length film, Bailando con Margot (Dancing with Margot) will soon begin. Video clips seem to be a sort of a springboard to shoot big. Other renowned producers like Lester Hamlet, Alfredo UretaandPavelGiroud have proven it already. Now, it is Santana’s turn. Therefore, OnCuba interviewed him about this new project and the current condition of Cuban video clips. “This is a project I’ve been working on since 1996 incredibly. It has changed but it has not lost its essence”, Santana said. What´s the plot in Bailando con Margot? It all begins in Havana in 1958. A painting has been stolenfrom a rich widow’s place. A detective’s office sends one of its employees to take over the case. After hours with the widow, the reporter comes back with the thought that this is the most important story...

Recently, a documentary about the life of singer Kelvis Ochoa was released. I know of a place, by the Swiss director Beat Borter , portrays Kelvis as a musician, poet , cook, dreamer, surrounded by his daily muses and inspirations . The film was shown to large crowds in the last edition of the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema and from next March 13 will be showcased at the Yara cinema in the capital , and then get to the cinemas of all provinces. Ochoa is one of the most prolific and popular artists of his generation. His work combines the dynamism of modern life with the most representative of our sound rhythms to achieve melodies and lyrics of great originality, meaning and feeling. Although born in Las Tunas in 1970, La Isla de la Juventud is the place where he developed his love of music. This site serves as one of the main scenarios of the material where he and his friends tell as in the late eighties it became a great creative workshop where they discovered themselves as artists. Then we find Ramon ( Mongo ) Rives, the great master of sucu - suco , which...

Marking the 11 years of the demo Glass House by troubadour Erick Sanchez, the Colibri label made it official. The disc is accompanied by a funny video to captivate those that arrive for the first time and also to dust of cobwebs these songs tattooed in the memory of those who knew him and applaud him, as one of the most distinguished guitarists of his generation. This mysterious guy who sings under the downpour as his idolized Kundera , has crept into the minds of many who do not yet know whether they prefer his romantic compositions or social criticism since he learned well soon how to move with equal skill in both areas . Sacred and profane in unison, marginal and sophisticated, macho and tender, wild and clever, he travels with similar expertise between the string and verse. The truth is that nobody is left indifferent by his songs and this has been one of the goals of this pirate, as he stated in Mercedes, provokes, invites reflection and to summon the feeling. He does not want to play at your door, but opens it pleased to deliver eleven songs, different from each other, but permeated all of them...

This week the shooting of Cuba Libre started, the new film by renowned filmmaker Jorge Luis Sánchez (El Benny (2006). A vintage story, narrated from the perspective of two children, is in summary the plot of the film, the main locations are located in the present province of Mayabeque as well as some areas of the capital, including the Morro castle. In the words of its director and writer "Cuba Libre is the exit of Spain and the entry of the United States in the island in 1898." He did not advance much. He prefers not to raise expectations and work on its making and then discuss this. It will be a period film, set in the late nineteenth century, and will feature performances by Isabel Santos, Manuel Porto and Yarlo Ruiz. OnCuba arrived in the set for details on this new release. Jorge Luis, spoke little of the movie, instead he decided to talk about his biggest concern: the current state of Cuban cinema... “I am among those who think that the Cuban cinema is in a very interesting stage. First for the diversity it is advocating, unlike years when movies watched reality from a single viewpoint or epic...

Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, authentic, visceral, corrosive, controversial and iconoclastic, is one of the most internationally read and edited Cuban writers. Although he was born in Matanzas in 1950, he spent most of his time living and working at the Havana’s municipality of Centro Habana. He, in his own way, honors and exalts it; he turned it into a character, beyond serving him as the stage for his stories. Eschatology, sweat, alcohol, irony, filth, hunger, prostitution and of course sex with compassion, tenderness, passion, laughter, melody, delirium and hope copulate in his books. He defines himself as a normal writer, or the as the one trying to find what's behind the darkness of each person. The truth is that his books are a reflection of his people, friends, and loves, longings from which he apparently feels harassed and tries to exorcise through phrases. OnCuba went one afternoon to his terrace, planted on a roof in front of the Malecon with a marvelous view of the skyline and the Morro Castle, to see the sunset it had already seen in the pages of the renowned writer: When you read Breakfast at Tiffany's, by Truman Capote, at sixteen, you decided that one day...

We have been orphaned of Santiago Feliu . His followers and acquaintances still cannot believe his sudden death this week, they refuse to believe it or internalize it. Among the great friends of Santy, as he was called by his relatives, troubadour Frank Delgado stands out. “I knew him so well that I do not know where to begin, I do not understand how people can settle as quickly and write about Santiago, I'm still very confused and do not want to start with the truism that everyone uses on how I met him. " he told OnCuba in his home where we arrived to reminisce the great lefty. For over an hour we talked with the author of La otra orilla about loss and his unforgettable friendship with Santi . "It's unexpected news that I resisted believing. When we see the photos now posted on the Internet in which he is seen with his youthful image makes his death even more terrifying. Santiago was an incarnation of eternal youth, for what he seemed like that physically and in his life and was always a transgressor and transgressors always have that aura of always being very young. I could not...

Cuban writers inspire again filmmakers around the world. The creations of three representative contemporary authors: Wendy Guerra, Leonardo Padura and Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, serve as a pretext for Colombian, French and Spanish filmmakers to offer their vision of the Island. ¨Todos se van, ¨the first novel by Wendy Guerra, awarded in 2006 with Bruguera First Prize, was brought to celluloid by renowned Colombian director Sergio Cabrera. It is already in post-production process in Bogotá. The director tried to film in Cuba, country where the literary text is develops, but did not have the necessary authorizations so locations were moved to the coast of Colombia. Rachel Mojena, Yoima Valdés and Abel Rodríguez are the stars of the film that tells the story of Nieve, an eight- year-old girl whose journey from childhood to adolescence is not a bed of roses. She feels an immense solitude when seeing how they all leave and abandon her. In the words of its author, "is a story of pain, growth and strength in the adult fight of a girl for having a consistent existence in the complex reality of Cuba in the seventies." Cabrera is one of the most important Colombian filmmakers; he has participated...

José Massip , renowned Cuban filmmaker died on Saturday in Havana. In 2012 he received the National Film Award, a year earlier, the director Mayra Alvarez premiered the documentary Los mundos de Massip. With a strong academic background as a philosopher, philologist and sociologist, he belonged to the Nuestro Tiempo Cultural society, along with Alfredo Guevara, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Julio García Espinosa, with whom he produced the documentary “El Mégano.” "I was the editor of the magazine we had, but our society was much more than a magazine," according to what he declared to this reporter a few years ago: "In Nuestro Tiempo began our artistic and revolutionary work, the seed of what later we each of us became.” A little later he would found alongside his friends ICAIC , on March 24, 1959 , which he also qualified in the conversation "as a great cultural achievement from its inception until today, the challenge always supposed to make a different film , called revolutionary film, then New Cuban Cinema , a small Caribbean island with certain ethical , aesthetic and political values above all . " The pages of the diary of José Martí was one of the great...

"Conducta is a simple story that tells of a boy with a lot of problems, and the importance for him of his veteran sixth grade teacher." So simple is the synopsis that in a couple of lines the director Ernesto Daranas sums up his second feature film, produced by the Ministry of Culture, the ICAIC and RTV Commercial that this month will be released nationwide. "Conducta is based on our reality, he adds, in the aftermath of a quarter century of special period and the impact of a set of measures has failed to impact on the real lives of our poorest sectors. How will all mark the children of those families? How important is the teacher to those guys? ". With these concerns, Daranas gathered a group of students from the Faculty of Arts and Media Communication at the Higher Institute of Art, and began with their collaboration a research process that allowed him to see firsthand the reality of children and parents living in the poorest districts, visit schools and meet with teachers. Of these revelatory experiences a screenplay was written by the director that tells the story of Chala, an eleven- year-old living alone with his addicted...

With the aim of updating Chinese people on Cuban contemporary art, the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Centre (SUPEC) will exhibit from next March the sample ¨Rodando se encuentran. ¨ A total of 150 works of various manifestations, expressions, styles, formats and techniques arrive to the major Chinese exhibition area to continue with the activities organized by the National Council of Plastic Arts (CNAP) by its Spanish acronym) in recent years, in response to the growing interest by Cuban contemporary art that exists in the Asian nation. Various Chinese galleries and private and institutional collectors have acquired pieces of our most representative artists. This sample- conceived as the largest plastic exhibition going out the island to the Asian public, includes painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, installation and video art from a hundred creators of dissimilar generations such as the National Plastic Arts Awards Pedro Pablo Oliva, Roberto Fabelo, Nelson Dominguez, Alfredo Sosabravo, Adigio Benitez, Ever Fonseca, among others. Those attending SUPEC may appreciate great works of Cuban culture of the second half of the twentieth century and the twenty-first, no doubt, a unique opportunity to enjoy great artistic pieces belonging to CNAP collection. Located in the center of Shanghai People's Square, SUPEC...