Antonio Silvano Suárez Sánchez

Screenwriter of novels and adventures, outstanding director of Cuban television and theater, essayist and short story writer. National TV Prize 2006

He discovered theater when he was a high school student at the Instituto de La Habana, around the 1940s, and from then on it had a notable presence in the life and work of Silvano Suárez.

He began in 1949 as a screenwriter for television novels and adventures. Since then he accumulated vast experience that flourished in 1963 with the founding of the Aventuras space on channel 6 of Cuban Television, a program that initiated a new era within television, as it implied the replacement of all American-style spaces, such as Patrullas de caminos, Bat Masterson, El sheriff de Cochice, etc., with others with greater content inspired by works of universal literature. He directed the first adventure series broadcast in this space: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, starring outstanding Cuban actor Enrique Almirante, in the role of Captain Nemo.

As part of Aventuras, Silvano Suárez also directed the two series of El Zorro. It was precisely in the second one where, in the role of one of the Malpica brothers, Luis Rielo became known, an outstanding Cuban television actor, famous for his portrayal of negative characters.

Based on the precedent established by the Robin Hood adventures, the El Zorro series directed by Silvano Suárez created a kind of television craze, in the time slot from seven-thirty to eight o'clock at night. The country practically came to a standstill.

As part of his work during those years, he inaugurated in 1964 the space El cuento universal on television, with the story Between Two Floors by María Ortoll, which he directed along with Carlos Piñeiro, and which starred Maritza Rosales and Enrique Almirante. This work was one of the best received by critics at the time. About it Orlando Quiroga wrote in Bohemia on April 10, 1964:

"Silvano Suárez and Carlos Piñeiro managed to conduct this story, in El cuento universal with worthy mastery […]. And to do so they had only two characters, but they found an Enrique Almirante superior to himself and Maritza Rosales, who once again demonstrated that she is an actress capable of getting into the skin of the most unusual characterizations […]. The most beautiful camera work of the month occurred when Silvano took the cameras to the Plaza de la Catedral. There the living stones […] acquired the magical touch of the immortals."

His work in television also includes an extensive list of telenovelas in which he directed outstanding figures of Cuban television. In his acclaimed novel Primavera en Budapest, which earned him a Caracol prize for directing, the renowned Cuban actress Susana Pérez made her debut, who worked with the director on multiple occasions throughout her artistic career. Also in a work by Silvano Suárez, actress Beatriz Valdés made her television debut in the Cuban teleplay Los novios, in 1981. He directed the novel Magdalena with a cast made up of renowned Cuban actors such as Susana Pérez, Tahimí Alvariño and José Antonio Rodríguez, among others.

Silvano Suárez had close ties to the performing arts from very early in his career. Throughout several decades of work in television, he directed versions of important works by Latin American playwrights. He was responsible for the first teleplay broadcast by Cuban television, but he not only did theater on television, but also on stage.

One of the most important milestones of his career is the staging of Mi socio Manolo, a work that had an important international run through Venezuela, Argentina and Mexico in the late 1980s; and which has had several versions, in charge of various theatrical groups and on television within the island.

Also noteworthy is Silvano Suárez's staging of ¡Hip…hip…ufa!, by Argentine Dalmiro Sáenz, Casa de las Américas Theater Prize winner in 1967.

His theatrical work includes plays such as El Apagón, starring Tahimí Alvariño; Ernesto, Caracol prize in 1979; La carta, with Teatro Estudio, which premiered in 1988 at the Sala Teatro Hubert de Blanck, in La Habana; and Aquiles y la tortuga, premiered in 1989 at the National Theater of Cuba, a work based on Historias de caracol by renowned Cuban playwright Reinaldo Montero.

His most recent work was Uno para todos, an adaptation for television made from the theatrical work Tute cabrero, by prestigious Argentine playwright Roberto Cossa, which deals with three friends, coworkers of different generations, who put their personal and family relationships in crisis, based on a conflict generated at the company where they have always worked. The premiere of this work took place in November 2008 in the Manuel Galich room of the Casa de las Américas. For its realization he had a cast that includes Martha del Río, Carlos Padrón, and Renecito de la Cruz, among others.

He was a member of the first national commission for evaluation of television directors. He has taught courses on screenwriting and television production at the ICRT training school. He was vice president of the radio, film and television section of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) and has been a jury member for several national competitions (UNEAC Caracol prize in 1968, National Theater Festival of Camagüey 1986, and the MINFAR-ICRT competition) and international ones (Eurovision Competition 1979 in Bulgaria). He currently works as a screenwriter and director in the creative vice presidency of ICRT. As a writer, he published short stories in the magazines Bohemia, Cartelera, Lunes de Revolución, among others. He wrote an important essay on the novels of Ernest Hemingway. He was also the director of the first educational programs of the International School of Theater of Latin America and the Caribbean (EITALC).

Among the recognitions he has received are the prize from the Union of Bulgarian Journalists in 1979, the Raúl Gómez García Medal, the 50th Anniversary seal of Cuban Television, the Recognition Diploma for the 40th Anniversary of ICRT, and the National Television Prize 2005.