Eyes that will see very soon

The 41st edition of the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema will be held in Havana between December 5 and 15, dedicated to remember in its centenary the most important Cuban documentary filmmaker of all time: Santiago Álvarez, and to honor the Institute of Art and Cinematographic Industry (Icaic) on its sixtieth anniversary.

The main Latin American cinematographic event, whose promotional motto will be “Ojos que ven”, will feature this time in the presentation of 21 fiction films, 19 short films and medium-length films, 18 raw operas, 21 documentaries films, 10 short and medium-length documentaries, 23 animated films, 25 unpublished scripts and 30 posters.

One of the most anticipated events of the film festival of this city that has just turned its first five hundred years of existence will be the Wasp Network exhibition, a co-production between France, Brazil, Spain and Belgium directed by Olivier Assayas and starring, among other important actors, by the Spanish actress Penelope Cruz and the Mexican Gael García Bernal. The film, based on the book The Last Soldiers of the Cold War, by Brazilian Fernando Morais, tells the story of the five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters infiltrated in the United States and imprisoned for sixteen years in the northern nation, whose liberation coincided with the restoration five years ago, on December 17, 2014, diplomatic relations between the Caribbean island and the United States government.

Among the many activities that will be carried out to honor the director of documentaries as memorable as Now, the Brazilian-Cuban documentary Santiago de las Américas or the eye of the Third World, by Silvio Tendler, will be shown the retrospective exhibition dedicated to the centenary of the filmmaker and the book Santiago Álvarez: a filmmaker of the Revolution, by Icaic Editions, written by Andy Muñoz, Lianet Cruz Partea and Yobán Pelayo Legrá will be presented.

As a tribute to the Cuban film institute, founded sixty years ago, the exhibition of the documentaries Evocation - records «the founding years of Icaic through the life and work of one of its most charismatic figures: the promoter and director of international relations Saúl Yelín »- will take place, and Portrait of an always adolescent artist, who, based on the figure of the filmmaker Julio García Espinosa,« establishes a reflection on the emergence and development of the new national cinematography, its successes, struggles, contradictions and confrontations with the dogmatic thinking that seemed to dominate the Cuban political-cultural spectrum at times; the always difficult, risky and necessary relationship between officials and artists, and the close and united defense of filmmakers around their film policy ».

To the traditional samples of German and Spanish cinema, the galas and the international contemporary panorama will be joined by the cycles "History of Italian cinema, a documentary perspective" and "Restored classics". The latter includes the iconic film by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea The death of a bureaucrat, made in 1966 with the performance of the unforgettable Cuban actor Salvador Wood, who died recently.

“The Festival opens - declared Iván Giroud, president of the event, at the press conference held in the Taganana Hall of the National Hotel of Cuba - on the 5th at the Carlos Marx with a show of the National Ballet of Cuba in tribute to Alicia Alonso and its relationship with the Icaic and its filmmakers. The film to close that gala will be the fiction feature La odisea de los giles, Argentine-Spanish co-production directed by Sebastián Borensztein that features the role of Ricardo Darín and his son. Both will accompany us on the opening night ».