It was not art, but nostalgia, the thread that pulled filmmaker Ernesto Daranas (Havana, 1961) to launch a rescue and salvage operation of the work of Nicol\u00e1s Guill\u00e9n Landri\u00e1n (Camag\u00fcey 1938-Miami, 2003).<\/p>\n
The son of mountain teachers \u2014 his mother\u2019s last name is Serrano \u2014 he lived the experience of the Sierra Maestra, the incubator of Fidel Castro\u2019s lightning-fast guerrilla war in the late 1950s, until he was 5 years old. Back in Havana and still a child, Daranas was perhaps the only one who happily endured, in the neighborhood cinema, the tiresome repetition of Ociel del Toa<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (1965), a documentary jewel by Nicol\u00e1s Guill\u00e9n Landri\u00e1n (NGL) that served as filler in film batches in case the movie of the day failed<\/p>\n \u201cThe many times they put it on caused the public to start whistling; but I was very fond of the documentary. It brought back memories of my childhood in the Sierra,\u201d he says from the other end of the telephone line when talking with OnCuba<\/strong> from his home in Old Havana.<\/p>\n As much or more than his cinema, the life of NGL shows signs of a novel. His mother, a designer, a friend of Lam and Ponce, avant-garde painters. His father, lawyer, law firm owner. His uncle, the famous communist poet Nicol\u00e1s Guill\u00e9n. He studied painting, and then Social and Political Sciences at the University of Havana, where he conspired against the Batista dictatorship. He abandoned the career to dedicate himself to radio locution.<\/p>\n He was unemployed when in 1960, expelled from the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) and the School for Diplomats, he entered the Cuban Institute of Cinema Art and Industry (ICAIC) advised by Juan Carlos Tab\u00edo. He started out as a production assistant, and Joris Ivens and Theodor Christensen were quick to mentor him as they noticed the rookie\u2019s talents.<\/p>\n Nicolasito, as he was called, filmed his first works as a director: Patio arenero, Homenaje a Picasso<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Congos reales<\/em>. In total there were 14 documentaries. Coffea Ar\u00e1biga<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, the most controversial of all. In a row, they can be seen as the exquisite corpses of the surrealists, despite the didacticism of some.<\/p>\n