While Cuba movie development has been linked almost exclusively to the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC)- state filming company created on March 24, 1959 -, in recent years the audiovisual landscape of the island has changed. Greater accessibility to technology, we moved from 35mm rolls into the digital age, much cheaper-, the emergence of new voices made visible at events like the ICAIC Muestra Joven, and the emergence of other forms of production-independent cooperatives, access to international aid funds, and so on-, have resulted in a wealth of materials that some experts have called the Cuban Alternative Cinema.
In this segment of the national audiovisual focuses Submerged: Cuban Alternative Film Festival, an event that will travel during the months of September and October 4 centers of higher learning in the United States: : Florida Atlantic University, Rice University, Tulane University and Princeton University. Thise institutions sponsor the tour.
“We want to encourage reflection about a kind of movie that is produced and circulated in alternative settings. A cinema that proposes new languages and seems detached from what is known as the great tradition of cinema. This is to show to an international audience (perhaps used to a certain image of Cuban cinema) that a new visual expression and that this is a new reading of the country and its culture. Somehow, out of Cuba, they had established a sort of canon that blurred or impoverished the richness and complexity of the present moment, “Professor Luis Duno-Gottberg, a professor at Rice University (Houston, Texas), and organizer of the event told OnCuba exclusively.
Referring to his intention to make this film exhibition, the interviewee said: “I was interested in thinking about how the transformations in the country over the last five years had impacted the production of audiovisual discourse. In particular, I was interested to learn a little about how the flexibility of the economy was leading to new mechanisms of production and circulation, in new media consumption habits in new aesthetic expressions. ”
On the growing interest of foreign professors in Cuban audiovisual production, Dean Luis Reyes, film critic and curator added: “Basically you’re wondering what happened after classics such as Lucia (1968) and Memories of Underdevelopment (1968). With this sample we prioritize this area of our audovisual, establish a possible critical path using what has been made between 2004 and 2012 “.
The selection includes films like Model Town (Laimir Fano, 2007) The courtyard of my house (Patricia Ramos, 2007) Pool (Carlos M. Quintela, 2012), The Illusion (Susana Barriga, 2008) The second death of the useful man (Adrian Replanski, 2010), and Revolution (Maikel Pedrero, 2009). The eighteen chosen materials propose a kind of map or overview of the current Cuba, colored by very personal criteria of the directors.
“There are very interesting origin materials, as Rebuilding the hero (Javier Castro, 2007), born of the Department of Art Practice by artist Tania Bruguera. Also included in the sample are works from filmmakers who don’t live in Cuba, as Manuel Zayas, from whom we chose Extravagant Beings (2005), “Reyes says.
On specific planned activities Duno announced: “The Festival will start at Florida Atlantic University, where professor and Dean Michael Horswell, co-organizer of the exhibition, has prepared teaching activities for undergraduate and secondary education. Then it comes to Rice University, where it will be presented both to students and the general public and will be inserted into my own seminar on Latin American film history. From there it will move to Tulane University, where it will be exhibited in the framework of the Radical Caribbeans Conference 2013, organized by the famous Cuban film scholar Ana Lopez, also director of The Cuban Studies Institute. ”
Submerged will feature academic exhibitions and talks by specialists in the subject. Miguel Coyula, a filmmaker who participate in the festival, told OnCuba that “the sample focuses on alternative cinema, rather than the independent, that is, materials that focuses on thematic or aesthetic propose different to those normally seen in Cuban cinema.”
This director will screen Memorias del desarrollo (2010), a film produced and performed by him practically alone. The excellent reception of this film by the critics, it emerged as one of the most famous independent filmmakers in Cuba. Coyula is one of the few directors of the island who are interested in the science fiction genre. At present, he is preparing, with the same production style, his third feature film: Blue heart.
Submerged program is organized around six thematic-formal cores. Tropical Mythology brings together works that explore somehow Cuban myths and legends, referring to the world of the unconscious, while Ruinas y espectros addresses the remains of great historical Cuban narratives that are being deleted or distorted by the fragility of memory or simple abandonment.
Meanwhile, Free Electrons includes materials that intentionally break from easy classifications and traditional repertoires of Cuban cinema; Las políticas de la memoria confronts the affective dimension of five decades of historical development through multiple lenses / generations, and La persistencia de un sueño proposes challenging explorations of major project / dream of the Revolution.
Postnacionalismo, poscinemático comes full circle with a bet that breaks the geographical confines of the island and addresses broad concepts while exploring the Cuban virtuoso of the potential of digital technologies.
In the United States there have been several audiovisual samples dedicated to the island’s filmmaking. In February this year was presented at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) a selection named New Cubans Shorts, which included fourteen works made between 1993 and 2011. Most materials were shown for the first time in the United States.
Another novelty was the Cuban Women U.S. Showcase, organized by the “Sara Gomez” Cuban Women Filmmakers Mediatheque. The cities of Los Angeles, New York and Miami in March welcomed this year’s selection, which brought together more than 30 works, by 26 Cuban filmmakers.
Similarly, in May this year a sample of American documentary toured Cuba, thanks to collaboration of the organization America’s Media Initiative (AMI) and Muestra Joven ICAIC. The tour, under the name Closing Distances, stopped in Bayamo, San Pablo de Yao, Guantanamo and Baracoa.
This was the second time that U.S. films toured Cuba. During the spring of 2012, AMI filed an official program of MoMA in Cienfuegos, Camaguey, Holguin and Havana.
Photo: Revolution´film (Maikel Pedrero, 2009)
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