Tania Delgado Fernández, director of the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, inaugurated the 46th edition of the event today. This year’s festival is dedicated to honoring the memory of its founder, the renowned Cuban filmmaker Alfredo Guevara, on the 100th anniversary of his birth.
The musical welcome was provided by the group Espirales, made up of Rodrigo García on piano, Tania Hasse on violin, Olivia Rodríguez on double bass and percussionists Alejandro Aguiar and Jesús Estrada on drums, who offered Estrellita, by the Mexican Manuel Ponce; En busca de un espacio, Séptimo septiembre and Luna en calma, by Rodrigo García; En do pa´ que no na’, by Ernesto Oliva and Espiral, by Aldo López-Gavilán.
At this opening ceremony, whose date coincides exactly with the creation of the Foundation of New Latin American Cinema (FNCL) forty years ago, Delgado Fernández praised the capacity for resilience and reinvention as virtues that have allowed this new edition to thrive, despite the challenges.
She added that this Latin American cinema is honest, open, sometimes stark, always poetic; Dreamy and magical, this is what allows us to return each year to this event in this beautiful city; it also signifies that through the seventh art, it is possible to recognize the diverse realities of each society.
For his part, Alexis Triana Hernández, president of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC), recalled in a passionate speech the ideals of Guevara, which remain alive in the essence of the festival, in the effort to bring it to all of Cuba to heal the people who are going through adversity, because, he affirmed, art also heals.
There were also reminiscences of that day when the FNCL was born, when artists from across the continent gathered at the former Santa Bárbara estate, led by Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz and the Colombian writer and Nobel Laureate in Literature, Gabriel García Márquez, with the unwavering purpose of continuing to work for a cinema committed to the realities of the peoples of our continent.
The first night of Cuba’s most cinematic festival unfolded in this way, amidst reminiscences and celebrations; also amidst the music of the group Espirales, the presentation of José María Vitier, the awarding of the Coral de Honor prize to the octogenarian Churubusco Studios of Mexico; and —as a finale— the presentation of the Argentine feature film “Belén”, by the filmmaker Dolores Fonzi.
IMAGE CREDIT: The Cuban group “ESPIRALES” — made up of five very talented, young musicians — inaugurated the Festival at the Charlie Chaplin Theater / Isel Moreira Zulueta | Photo: Luis Jiménez
[ SOURCE: AGENCIA CUBANA DE NOTICIAS ]
