Enrique Colina Álvarez

Enrique Colina, film director and critic. For more than 30 years, he produced and directed the weekly film criticism program 24 x Segundo on Cuban television, a joint project of ICAIC and ICRT, a television program that revolutionized the treatment of information and film criticism in our media, which earned him a very wide and sustained television audience.

He completed undergraduate studies in Hispanic and French Language and Literature at the University of Havana. He began working at ICAIC in 1962. After several months at that Institution, he moved to work at the National Council of Culture as a translator and interpreter, and as a specialist in the Literature department.

In 1968, he returned to ICAIC, working as a film critic, while at the same time producing and directing on Cuban Television, for more than 30 years, the weekly film criticism program 24 x Segundo, a television program that revolutionized the treatment of information and film criticism in our media, which earned him a very wide and sustained television audience.

In parallel, Colina ventured into filmmaking, first with journalistic reports such as the one he filmed in Portugal about the Carnation Revolution, undoubtedly a jewel of the genre, and later with documentaries and short fiction films. Among these, Vecinos (1985), Más vale tarde…que nunca (1987), and Chapucerías (1988) stand out, awarded in various national and international events. In 2003, he made his only feature fiction film, Entre ciclones.

He also stood out for his theoretical work in the Cine Cubano magazine, and teaching at the International Film and Television School of San Antonio de los Baños, where he served as director of the Documentary Studies Chair, and as senior film professor at the Superior Institute of Art. He conducted film courses and seminars at educational institutions in Cuba and other countries.

In 1984 he filmed his first documentary, Estética.

He has produced reports on film weeks and festivals in countries such as Mexico, Portugal, Moscow, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Colombia, West Germany, Costa Rica, among others. In this last country, he produced a program about Cuban Film Week in Costa Rica, with which he obtained the 1st Prize of the Juan Manuel Márquez Journalism Competition, for Radio and TV. He has also produced filmed reports on Cuban cinema productions and various film essays. He contributes as a critic to the Cine Cubano Magazine.

He was a professor at the International Film School of San Antonio de los Baños and at the Faculty of Art and Audiovisual Media (FAMCA), of the Superior Institute of Art, in Havana. He teaches filmmaking courses and workshops at different Universities in France (la Femis in Paris and the University of Toulouse), Canada, and Morocco.

Filmography
Estética (Doc. 11´) 1984
Yo también te haré llorar (Doc. 18´) 1984
Vecinos (Doc. 16´) 1985
Más vale tarde... que nunca (Doc. 9´) 1986
Jau (Doc. 23´) 1986
Chapucerías (Doc. 11´) 1986
El Unicornio (Doc. 17´) 1987
El Rey de la Selva (Doc. 11´) 1991
Entre ciclones (Feature Fiction 112´) 2003

Awards and Recognitions
Estética
Golden Mikeldi from the Documentary Jury. XXVI International Documentary Film Festival. Bilbao, Spain, 1984.
Selected among the most significant films of the year. Annual Selection by Critics. Havana, 1984.
Vecinos
Third Coral Prize for documentary VII International Festival of New Latin American Cinema. Havana, Cuba, 1985.
Selected among the most significant documentary films of the year. Annual Selection by Critics. Havana, 1986.
Merit Diploma, International Short Film Festival. Tampere, Finland, 1986.
Golden Colón, awarded by the public. XIII Iberoamerican Film Festival in Huelva, Spain, 1987.
Ministry of Environment Award. III Biennial of Architecture Film. Bordeaux, France, 1987.
Jau
Selected among the most significant documentaries of the year. Annual Selection by Critics. Havana, 1986.
Más vale tarde...que nunca
Selected among the most significant documentaries of the year. Annual Selection by Critics. Havana, 1987.
Special Critics Prize. July 26 Competition of the Union of Cuban Journalists (UPEC). Havana, 1987.
Special Mention from the International Federation of Film Clubs (FICC). XXXIII Short Film Festival. Oberhausen, West Germany, 1987.
Jury Mention. XXXIII Short Film Festival. Oberhausen, West Germany, 1987.
Third Coral Prize for documentaries. VIII International Festival of New Latin American Cinema. Havana, 1987.
Chapucerías
Selected among the most significant documentaries of the year. Annual Selection by Critics. Havana, 1988.
Caracol Editing Award (Félix de la Nuez). V National UNEAC Film, Radio and Television Festival. Havana, 1988.
Special Prize for works that best address aspects affecting the construction of socialism. July 26 Competition of the Union of Cuban Journalists (UPEC). Havana, 1989.
Entre ciclones
Third Bronze Prize of the Pre-Columbian Circle for Best Film. Bogotá International Festival. Colombia, 2003.
El palestino
Unpublished Screenplay Award at the Amiens Festival, France, 2003.

Colina was a lucid, questioning, controversial man of cinema and culture, always consistent with positions committed to his principles. He leaves a body of work, as a critic and filmmaker, that will undoubtedly be a reference for future generations of filmmakers for his drive for experimentation, renewal, and permanent willingness to demystify, through his own use of cinematographic language, the very codes of other filmmakers that he systematically and brilliantly undertook to dismantle in the late Saturday night sessions of 24 por segundo.