Special Moments of Cuban Cinema
Next March 24 the Cuban Institute of Cinema Arts and Industry (ICAIC) will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of its creation. A propos the transcendental event for national culture, Antonio Mazón Robau, programmer of the Cinematheque of Cuba and known radio and TV film commentator, tells TTC readers about some especially transcendental moments in the development of Cuban cinema.
In the early days of the revolution and perhaps due to the fact that some filmmakers had studied in Rome’s Film Institute, specifically the case of Julio García Espinosa and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, there was an influence of neorealist cinema in ICAIC’s first productions.
Some foreign directors were also invited to film in Cuba, as was the case of Mikhail Kalatozov and the films Soy Cuba, El otro Cristóbal, by Armand Gatti, or Preludio 11, by German Kurt Maetzig. In my opinion, documentary making was a fundamental school for all these filmmakers who were beginning, who were formed as documentary makers. Some of them began trying out fiction from the beginning, like Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Julio García Espinosa.
Little by little the foundations were created for a cinema language of its own, which in short was ICAIC’s objective, to create a national cinema, with a high artistic interest and an original cinema language. This was during the 1960s, which are the so-called years of the “prodigious decade,” rightly called so not just in Cuba but also worldwide.
These were the years in which Santiago Alvarez made that sort of proto video clip which is Now, as well as Hanoi martes 13 (Hanoi Tuesday 13), Despegue a las 18 horas (Takeoff at 18 Hours) and several other important documentaries.
Those were the years in which another renowned documentary maker, Nicolás Guillén Landrián, shot excellent materials such as Coffea Arabiga, just to cite one example; during those years Octavio Cortázar also filmed the classic documentary Por primera vez (For the First Time), and it is also the time in which the two works, considered ICAIC’s major productions in its half century of life, were made in 1968: Lucía, by Humberto Solás, and Memories of Underdevelopment, by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea.
Many filmmakers worked during those years; I am also thinking of others such Manuel Octavio Gómez, and thus this new vision of our reality was created based on those filmmakers, then young, who began creating their work. Later on, little by little other filmmakers would join in.
Some like Humberto Solás and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea had a rather long career as filmmakers, others like Manuel Octavio Goméz had a shorter life, but left in his curriculum a key title in the 1960s, which is La primera carga al machete (The First Machete Charge).
We could cite other directors who continued to increase the list of ICAIC filmmakers. The 1960s, in short, had earned very well its name of “prodigious decade” in Cuba, since the foundations were created then for an institute and the aforementioned master works were filmed.
In the 1970s these directors continued making films. According to some critics, this decade was inferior to the previous one; in any case, some very important movies were made, such as De cierta manera (In a Certain Way), a feature length by filmmaker Sara Gómez, who passed away after that. La ultima cena (The Last Supper), by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, was also a key film of those years.
The 1980s represented the arrival of new directors, such as Juan Carlos Tabío, Fernando Pérez and Rolando Díaz, to cite a few, and it would be a decade in which a cinema that searched to connect with the popular, that searched a very immediate communication with the public, especially through the comedy genre, predominated.
The 1990s, in its first five years, were marked by the special period. Coproductions emerged at that time as a solution to the economic problems the Institute faced, but it was also the time in which a key title of contemporary Cuban cinema was made, which is Madagascar, by Fernando Pérez. Strawberry and Chocolate, by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío, was also filmed during that time, a film that by winning an important prize in Berlin and being a candidate to an Oscar, became a letter of presentation of Cuban cinema in countries that didn’t even know of the existence of a film industry in the island. Fernando Pérez became the most significant filmmaker of recent years with films such as Madagascar and La vida es silbar (Life is a Breeze), as well as subsequent movies such as Suite Habana. He is recognized by international critics as the most important live director of that time, since Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, who was considered up to then the most important Cuban filmmaker, had died a few years ago. That is, at this moment in time, critics view Fernando Pérez as the most important director of national cinema.
Recent years have also been marked by the presence of new generations of directors. The technological possibilities offered by the new postproduction formats, video, DVD, mini DVD, etc., have made it possible to film numerous works, documentaries, fiction shorts, that are represented in the Exhibits of New Filmmakers, carried out every year by ICAIC in February. There is a pool of young directors in the International School of Film and Television of San Antonio de los Baños, in the Higher Institute of Art and, especially, there are many independent filmmakers and groups that present their works at these Exhibits, which is where, in short, lie the probable continuators of ICAIC’s current directors.
In the early days of the revolution and perhaps due to the fact that some filmmakers had studied in Rome’s Film Institute, specifically the case of Julio García Espinosa and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, there was an influence of neorealist cinema in ICAIC’s first productions.Some foreign directors were also invited to film in Cuba, as was the case of Mikhail Kalatozov and the films Soy Cuba, El otro Cristóbal, by Armand Gatti, or Preludio 11, by German Kurt Maetzig. In my opinion, documentary making was a fundamental school for all these filmmakers who were beginning, who were formed as documentary makers. Some of them began trying out fiction from the beginning, like Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Julio García Espinosa.
Little by little the foundations were created for a cinema language of its own, which in short was ICAIC’s objective, to create a national cinema, with a high artistic interest and an original cinema language. This was during the 1960s, which are the so-called years of the “prodigious decade,” rightly called so not just in Cuba but also worldwide.
These were the years in which Santiago Alvarez made that sort of proto video clip which is Now, as well as Hanoi martes 13 (Hanoi Tuesday 13), Despegue a las 18 horas (Takeoff at 18 Hours) and several other important documentaries.
Those were the years in which another renowned documentary maker, Nicolás Guillén Landrián, shot excellent materials such as Coffea Arabiga, just to cite one example; during those years Octavio Cortázar also filmed the classic documentary Por primera vez (For the First Time), and it is also the time in which the two works, considered ICAIC’s major productions in its half century of life, were made in 1968: Lucía, by Humberto Solás, and Memories of Underdevelopment, by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea.
Many filmmakers worked during those years; I am also thinking of others such Manuel Octavio Gómez, and thus this new vision of our reality was created based on those filmmakers, then young, who began creating their work. Later on, little by little other filmmakers would join in.
Some like Humberto Solás and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea had a rather long career as filmmakers, others like Manuel Octavio Goméz had a shorter life, but left in his curriculum a key title in the 1960s, which is La primera carga al machete (The First Machete Charge).We could cite other directors who continued to increase the list of ICAIC filmmakers. The 1960s, in short, had earned very well its name of “prodigious decade” in Cuba, since the foundations were created then for an institute and the aforementioned master works were filmed.
In the 1970s these directors continued making films. According to some critics, this decade was inferior to the previous one; in any case, some very important movies were made, such as De cierta manera (In a Certain Way), a feature length by filmmaker Sara Gómez, who passed away after that. La ultima cena (The Last Supper), by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, was also a key film of those years.
The 1980s represented the arrival of new directors, such as Juan Carlos Tabío, Fernando Pérez and Rolando Díaz, to cite a few, and it would be a decade in which a cinema that searched to connect with the popular, that searched a very immediate communication with the public, especially through the comedy genre, predominated.
The 1990s, in its first five years, were marked by the special period. Coproductions emerged at that time as a solution to the economic problems the Institute faced, but it was also the time in which a key title of contemporary Cuban cinema was made, which is Madagascar, by Fernando Pérez. Strawberry and Chocolate, by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío, was also filmed during that time, a film that by winning an important prize in Berlin and being a candidate to an Oscar, became a letter of presentation of Cuban cinema in countries that didn’t even know of the existence of a film industry in the island. Fernando Pérez became the most significant filmmaker of recent years with films such as Madagascar and La vida es silbar (Life is a Breeze), as well as subsequent movies such as Suite Habana. He is recognized by international critics as the most important live director of that time, since Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, who was considered up to then the most important Cuban filmmaker, had died a few years ago. That is, at this moment in time, critics view Fernando Pérez as the most important director of national cinema.
Recent years have also been marked by the presence of new generations of directors. The technological possibilities offered by the new postproduction formats, video, DVD, mini DVD, etc., have made it possible to film numerous works, documentaries, fiction shorts, that are represented in the Exhibits of New Filmmakers, carried out every year by ICAIC in February. There is a pool of young directors in the International School of Film and Television of San Antonio de los Baños, in the Higher Institute of Art and, especially, there are many independent filmmakers and groups that present their works at these Exhibits, which is where, in short, lie the probable continuators of ICAIC’s current directors.