Relevant presence of the United States at Havana Film Festival

Actors like Ethan Hawke and Tim Robbins, veteran producer Christine Vachon and executives of Sundance Institute and HBO will represent the United States at the 37th Havana Film Festival next December, almost a year after the beginning of the thaw between Cuba and the North American nation.

“We have received a great amount of requests from the United States”, confirmed recently to the press the event’s director, Iván Giroud, who said that since the re-establishment of bilateral relations last July the situation “has reversed” and now they receive more requests from the United States than they can admit.

The North American presence will be mostly felt in the professional section, with the celebration of a laboratory organized by the Sundance Institute—founded by legendary Robert Redford—in which will take part Hawke and Scott Burns, script writer of Contagion and The Bourne Ultimatum.

Giroud also announced that will be celebrated a talk in which Cubans and North Americans will debate about the handling of filmmaker’s rights at present.

Although the Havana Film Festival gives greater hierarchy to Latin American films, a sample of U.S. films, in which highlights a selection of five documentaries produced by HBO, will be seen on the section “Otras Latitudes”.

Besides, the inclusion of Spanish Fernando León de Aranoa’sUn día perfecto in the section “Galas” will bring to Havana its main characters: Puerto Rican Benicio del Toro and North American Tim Robbins.

“There’s greater disposition now—to attend the festival—from the United States, but we have to choose among everything we receive, what has sense for the event (…) because we don’t have the capacity to take on all the requests”,  Giroud stated.

The 37th International Festival of the New Latin American Film of Havana will be inaugurated on December 3 with the screening of the acclaimed film El Clan, by Argentinian Pablo Trapero, and the jury will be presided over by actress Geraldine Chaplin, who will gather up the acting prize she received in 2014.

Until December 13, 444 films from the whole world—341 are from Latin America—will be screened in Havana’s movie theatres, in an edition that will mark “a very high point” for the “high quality” of the films selected, both in and out the contest.   

Together to the 135 works in contest in five categories, the program will include samples of Spanish and German cinema, a retrospective of Italian Marco Bellocchio and homages to figures like Brazilian Ruy, Guerra, to who an Honor Coral award will be conferred for his life work.  

Source: Cubadebate