"Searching for Casal" is the Cuban film candidate for nomination at the 2021 Platino Awards

June 18, 2021

The Cuban film, Searching for Casal could be nominated for the Academy Awards of the United States.

The Cuban feature film Searching for Casal, directed by filmmaker Jorge Luis Sánchez, received on Tuesday the candidacy for nomination at the eighth edition of the Platino Awards for Iberoamerican Cinema, which will be presented in Madrid (capital) next October, according to an announcement by the Management Entity for the Rights of Audiovisual Producers (Egeda).

The film is dedicated to Cuban modernist poet Julián del Casal, and shows his intellectual work, as well as his position against Spanish colonialism in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Searching for Casal could compete in the categories of best original music, composed by Juan Manuel Seruto; best male performance, for actor Yasmani Guerrero; best female performance for actress Blanca Rosa Blanco; best film editing direction, for Osvaldo Donatién; best art direction award which would go to Maykel Martínez; and best cinematography direction for José Manuel Riera.

Searching for Casal was part of the official selection of the Havana Latin American Film Festival of 2019. Its director, filmmaker Jorge Luis Sánchez had previously addressed the figure of the aforementioned Cuban poet in the 1990 documentary Where is Casal.

Egeda also announced that the film was included in the official selection of the Latin American Film Festival of Trieste, Italy, where it was selected as a pre-candidate for Best International Film at the 2021 Oscar Awards.