CINE CUBANO

50 YEARS OF FILM AND REVOLUTION

August 27 – October 21 2009 at METRO-KINO

For the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution and the existence of one of its most successful offsprings, the film institute ICAIC, the FILMARCHIV AUSTRIA presents the film production of the sugar island in an extensive retrospective. 40 selected films, which were made in the period of half a century, illustrate the life in Cuba in the course of the past 200 years. The filmmakers of the ICAIC, highly coined by the Italian neoverists in their early years, have left remarkable traces in the world cinema in spite of a modest yearly output in quantity. Especially in the 1960s and 70s their productions were among the most successful exponents of the Latin American cinema at international festivals because of their innovative and experimental character.

CINE CUBANO – Cuba’s history in the mirror of national film production

The concept of the film selection puts a stress on the depiction of Cuba’s history, from the period of slavery to the presence. 36 feature films, four documentaries and four short films are supposed to trace human fates against the background of historical events and to illustrate the course of Cuba’s history in an incoherent, chronological order.

The retrospective comprises for the first time all the classics of the Cuban cinema having become renowned in Europe, among them nine of the twelve feature films of Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, whose main work LA ÚLTIMA CENA (1976) serves as an introduction to the concept aimed at history. This parable like history of passion set in the period of slavery acts as a key towards a profound understanding for Cuba’s historical process. But in most of his works Alea dealt with the presence, often exaggerating the chronicle of current events by means of satire, such as in the famous LA MUERTE DE UN BURÓCRATA (1966), or in LAS DOCE SILLAS (1962), LOS SOBREVIVIENTES (1978) and GUANTANAMERA, his artistic last will of 1995. Being a director from the very beginning, he accompanied the revolution throughout all its periods, till the crisis of the 1990s and pleaded for tolerance towards discriminated minorities in his melodrama FRESA Y CHOCOLATE (1993). With CARTAS DEL PARQUE, the film adaptation of an episode from the García Márquez-novel Love in the Time of Cholera, he immerged once more into the bygone atmosphere of the fin-de-siècle.

The formally original historical works of Manuel Octavio Gómez represent further highlights: LA PRIMERA CARGA AL MACHETE (1969) offers innovative black and white photography, whereas Cuba’s first colour film LOS DÍAS DEL AGUA (1971) exhibits an orgy of esthetical colour dramaturgy. Formal originality is also displayed in the revolution comedy LAS AVENTURAS DE JUAN QUIN QUIN (1967) by Julio G. Espinosa as well as the Soviet-Cuban revolution’s classic SOY CUBA (1964) or DE CIERTA MANERA (1974) by Sara Gómez, the first female director of feature films of the country, and the triptych about the track of feminine emancipation history LUCIA (1968) by Humberto Solás, who rounds off the historical story arc from slavery to the revolution. These classics are mandatory dates for the fans of black and white photography. Among them is also the famous short film of Octavio Cortázar POR PRIMERA VEZ (1967), which features children of peasants experiencing their first film, Charlie Chaplin’s MODERN TIMES.

In the meantime the works of Daniel Díaz Torres, Fernando Pérez and Juan Carlos Tabío have also advanced to classics reflecting the living conditions in the years of the crisis since 1991 and the presence. Daniel Díaz Torres’s speciality are enigmatic criminal comedies such as HACERSE EL SUECO (2000) and satires full of black humour such as ALICIA EN EL PUEBLO DE MARAVILLAS (1991), whereas Juan Carlos Tabío shows how to cope with adverse conditions in his social comedies (LISTA DE ESPERA, 1999) or to be crazed by paranoid superstition (PLAFF, 1989). Fernando Pérez on the contrary predominantly displays in his films what present Cubans are dreaming about.

In a Cuba-retrospective music as the indispensable communicator of a tropical attitude to life must not be missing. In addition to well-known productions friends of the traditional son cubing have got the opportunity to experience the Austria premiere of the historical film biography about the folk singer Benny Moré, EL BENNY, directed by Jorge Luis Sánchez in 2006.

Among the documentaries you can find two productions, MONTANA DE LA LUZ and HÁGASE LA LUZ (Roberto Chile, 2005), about Cuba’s medical aid programs for the Third World. They show why Cuba’s credit is very high with the people of South America.