# Gerardo Fernández García

**Date of birth:** April 6, 1941

**Date of death:** December 20, 2020

**Categories:** Arts, theater, playwright, screenwriter, professor, Society

Gerardo Fernández is a name that becomes familiar in Cuban media in the early years of the 1960s through the dramatized programs of Radio Progreso.

Actually, the first program he wrote was Cuba en el mundo on Radio Progreso, alongside Julio Batista who was the soul of that space, its director and first writer, or screenwriter. But for him it was much more than that, because he arrived at the station without any aesthetic or political training. He learned alongside Julio.

Later he wrote screenplays of a historical nature such as Gran Aventura de la Humanidad and also Grandes momentos de la historia. In 1968 he moves to Radio Liberación, to write and direct El diario de campaña de Máximo Gómez. It is when he comes under the guidance of Iris Dávila, Odilia Romero, Isabelita Rodríguez and Martha Jiménez Oropesa, who, directly or indirectly, finished forming him.

Gerardo was fundamentally a playwright and screenwriter. He was Full Professor at the Faculty of Art of Audiovisual Communication Media at the University of the Arts of Cuba (ISA), Professor at the Center for Studies of Radio and TV, taught workshops at the International Film and TV School of San Antonio de los Baños, Advisor-consultant and tutor of the National Film Council of the Ministry of Culture of Ecuador and in multiple centers of artistic education in Cuba, Central America, South America, … he carried his knowledge with love and great modesty.

He was a worker at the Cuban Institute of Radio and TV (ICRT) where he was always greatly appreciated (playwright, screenwriter and librettist, actor, director, advisor, professor, analyst).

Member of UNEAC (Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba)

Recognitions:
- David Prize for theater (1974)
- Prize from the International Festival of Theater for Television, Plovdiv, Bulgaria (1976)
- Awarded the Order for National Culture (1983)
- Prize from the National Theater Festival of Camagüey (1986) Coral Prize from the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema (1987)
- Caracol Prizes for film, radio and television from the Association of Film, Radio and Television of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC.) (1979-80-81-88-89)
- Screenwriter for the films Madrigal del inocente, Te llamarás inocencia, Juegos florales and La yagruma
- Premiered his works with the groups Teatro Estudio, Bertolt Brecht (1977), Arte Popular, El Escambray

Writer of telenovelas and TV series:
El naranjo del patio,
Con las manos del presente,
La botija,
La gran rebelión,
Entre mamparas,
El balcón de los helechos

Published theatrical works in Cuba and abroad:
Ernesto (1976),
Ha muerto una mujer (1976),
La perra (1978),
A nivel de cuadra (1979),
Mónica (1987),
El padrino (1989),
La familia de Benjamín García (1990)

His work La perra has been study material at the Higher Institute of Art of the University of the Arts of Cuba and staged at the Faculty of Directors of the Higher Institute of Theatrical Art of the USSR (1981).

Specialist in the program Hablando de Dramaturgia on the national network Radio Taíno (1996-97).

Has participated in innumerable theoretical events with presentations such as: El guión en Latinoamérica, El melodrama: aberración y post modernidad, Un Óscar inmerecido, Fresa y chocolate, Un diferendo inconcluso

His book "Dramaturgia: Método para escribir o analizar un guión dramatizado" (Edit. Pablo de la Torriente Brau, La Habana, 2007) is an essential tool.