Film was the bread for the revolutionaries against the old order in Cuba. Ultimately it turned out the reveille for a new era that dawned exactly 50 years ago on January 1. Enthusiastic diplomatic relations with Sri Lanka were hot on the heels.
A film festival heads off from today at 4.30 till January 17 at 5pm everyday for the two nations to toast the golden jubilee. The Cuban Embassy and Sri Lanka – Cuba Friendship have made the festival arrangements at Russian Cultural centre to screen the films free of charge with Sinhala subtitles. As Cuban Ambassador Nirsia Castro Guevara weighs up, a good deal of the six films featured in the festival echo the nation’s everlasting revolutionary themes.
The first film ‘Fidel’ is a documentary about Fidel Castro with the coverage of Cuban revolution’s 40 years. It has a rare footage of the ex-Cuban leader’s life such as live moments with the Spanish legend Gabriel García Marquez. ‘Benny More’ narrates a musician’s life wedged between his own ideologies and the real life needs.
The third film ‘The Revolution’, aka ‘Revolucion’, is an hour-long documentary conveying the legacy of people and culture in Cuba. ‘Viva Cuba’, a story about two childhood friends, has clinched accolades in numbers. ‘Scent of Oak’ features an encounter between a beautiful black woman and a romantic German merchant filled with intolerance, incomprehension and love. ‘Che Guevara’ is the biopic titled after one of the key figures in the Cuban revolution.
Brothers Louis Jean and Auguste Marie Lumiere fuelled the celebrated cinema in Cuba. The Cuban cinema journeyed throughout American capitals before stepping into Havana in 1897. ‘Panorama Soler’ and ‘Salon de variedades o ilusiones opticas’ are two major locations set up for the Cuban films. The first in a long list of movie theatres in Havana was set by José A. Casasús, actor, producer and entrepreneur, under the name of ‘Floradora’; it was later renamed ‘Alaska’.
The Cuban cinema marked its position in the show business within the first six year before the World War I. However that memory has a twinge of sympathy as the cinema banked heavily on Hollywood in its initial days of instituting the position.
The infant era of the full length cinema shows a tendency to adapt literary works for movies. This followed the imitation of Chaplin, French comedies and cowboy adventure. With the revolution coming to a halt in a triumphant note in 1959, the newly formed Castro Government founded a cinematography department to take care of productions and documentaries. Critics take in this period as the golden era of the Cuban cinema. Humberto Solas’ ‘Lucia’ and Tomas Gutierrez Alea’s ‘Memorias del Subdesarrollo’ stimulated the mass conscience, and they are considered the best in the country, out of question.
‘Fresa y Chocolate’ is the most recent insightful film directed in 1993. The plot goes about intolerance and friendship between a gay and a unionist. It was the first ever Cuban film to attract a nomination in Oscars.
Documentaries and short films have been the bread and butter in Cuban cinema for the last 40 years. The first documentary ‘Now’ combines a song with an uninterrupted sequence of images digging in the prejudice in US animation. Juan Padron’s formation of Elpidio Valdes, a mambi fighter, became well-liked among Cuban children. Padron’s next movie called ‘Vampiros en La Habana’ also appealed the young crowd.
Cuba also provides accommodation for International School of Cinema, Television and Video. International Festival of the New Latin-American Cinema is celebrated every year in Havana since 1979.
http://www.dailynews.lk/2009/01/12/fea10.asp
