Mario García Joya

Born in Santa María del Rosario, Havana, Cuba (1938). Photographer, filmmaker and Art professor.

Mayito is the man who captured the most memorable scenes of Cuban life and art, he passed away Friday night at his home in southwest Miami, at age 85, victim of a degenerative neurological disease.

To Mayito's lens and vision we owe not only an essential gallery of faces and moments of Cuban events, from Benny Moré to Bola de Nieve, from Amelia Peláez to Virgilio Piñera, but also the imagery of about 90 films, including classics of national and Latin American cinematography such as The Last Supper (1976), The Survivors (1978) and Strawberry and Chocolate (1993), directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea.

He studied Fine Arts at the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts in Havana (1955-1958). He graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Hispanic Language and Literature from the Faculty of Philology at the University of Havana (1978).

In 1959 he began working in the literary supplement "Lunes de Revolución" and from 1960 he began working simultaneously at the Cuban Institute of Art and Cinematographic Industry (ICAIC).

In 1967 he was appointed Director of Cinematographic Photography at ICAIC, a position he held for almost three decades. In 1988 he received the teaching position of Associate Full Professor at the Higher Institute of Art (ISA) in Havana.

He was Co-Founder of the Photography Archive of Cuba. He has given lectures, seminars and conferences at multiple international forums, such as: House of Ecuadorian Culture and the University of Quito (Quito, Ecuador); the National Museum of Anthropology, the Mexican Film Library, the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City and the University of Mérida (Mexico); the International School of Film and Television of San Antonio de Los Baños, the University of Havana, the Palace of Conventions, the Museum of the City of Havana, the Palace of Fine Arts, the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) and the House of the Americas (Havana, Cuba); the Villa Clara Museum (Santa Clara, Cuba); and Irving University and the International Latin Film Festival of Los Angeles in Hollywood and Universal City (California, USA), at the International Center of Photography, at Ledel Gallery, at Photography Archives and at the School of Visual Art in New York (USA), among others.

He has participated in more than ninety feature and short films, among which stand out: Strawberry and Chocolate (1993), With You in the Distance (1992), Black River (1989), Park Letters (1987), Miracle in Rome (1987), Time to Die (1985), Up to a Point (1982) and The Last Supper (1976). In the United States he has worked as Director of Photography in the following films: Now Yes (2003), Linda Cuba (2001), Tears of the Soul (2000), The Princess and the Barrio Boy (2000), The Emerald Cut (1999), Courage (1998), Paradise Lost (1997), Modern Rhapsody (1996) and the short film Huaja California (1994).

His photography, in particular, has been awarded at important international festivals and exhibitions such as: First Prize at the International Film Festival in Bogotá (Colombia, 1991 and 1986), First Prize at the International Salon of the Hungarian Ministry of Culture in Budapest (Hungary, 1984), "House, Photographic Essay" Award at the House of the Americas in Havana (Cuba, 1981) and Honor Diploma for Photography at the International Book Exhibition in Leipzig (Germany, 1977), among many others.

Among the countless awards obtained as a team are: "Goya" Award for best foreign Spanish-language film from the Academy of Arts and Cinematographic Sciences of Spain (1995), Special Prize at the Sundance Festival in Utah, USA (1995), Special Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival (Germany, 1995), Best Film, Best Direction and Best Male Performance Award from the Association of Film Critics of New York (1995), Best Film Award from the Guadalajara Festival (1995), Coral Award for Popularity and First Coral Prize for Best Film, Best Direction and Best Male Performance at the XV International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana (Cuba, 1993) and an Oscar nomination in the best foreign film category from the Academy of Arts and Cinematographic Sciences of Hollywood (USA, 1995) for the film Strawberry and Chocolate.

The list of collective awards, corresponding to other films, includes venues as diverse as the International Film Festival of Viña del Mar in Chile, the Ibero-American Film Festival of Huelva in Spain, the International Film Festival of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, the Iberian and Latin American Film Festival of Biarritz in France, the International Film Festival of Figueira de Foz in Portugal and the International Film Festival of Damascus in Syria, to mention a few. His personal and collective exhibitions have taken place in Cuba and in Europe, USA, Canada, Japan and Latin America. His works are part of the permanent collection of the National Museum, Palace of Fine Arts, the Photography Archive of Cuba, the House of the Americas Collection, the University of Havana, the lobby of the Musical Theater of Havana and the Wilfredo Lam Center in Havana (Cuba), the Bacardí Museum in Santiago de Cuba, the Center for Cuban Studies and the International Center of Photography in New York (USA), the Mexican Council of Photography in Mexico City (Mexico), at the Cultural Center of São Paulo (Brazil) and at the Center for Studies and Communication Archives in Parma (Italy).

At present he is a Member of the Board of Directors of the Cuban American Institute in Los Angeles (California, USA) and in 2002 the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in New York honored his career with one of its prestigious fellowships. Mayito divides his time between his home in California and Puerto Rico, where he works on cinematographic projects.