Cuban filmmaker Gloria Rolando receives Special Prize for Life's Work

February 3, 2020

The Barbados International Independent Film Festival awarded the Special Lifetime Achievement Award to Cuban filmmaker Gloria Rolando.

At the event, the documentary Los hijos de Baraguá (1996), by the renowned filmmaker, was screened, which tells the story of the migration of Barbadians and Jamaicans to Ciego de Ávila, Cuba, coming from Panama and Central America as a result of the conclusion of work on the Panama Canal and Caribbean diaspora to work in Cuba's growing sugar industry in the 1920s of the last twentieth century.

Furthermore, a panel of professors from the University of the West Indies, made up of Dr. Andrew Millington, Cuba's Ambassador to Barbados, Sergio Jorge Pastrana, and the co-chair of the film event, discussed both the film and all of Gloria Rolando's work and recognized her trajectory and the importance of her work for the history of populations of African descent throughout the Caribbean.

Also present at the event were representatives of Cubans residing in the island nation, as well as other representatives of the diplomatic corps accredited there, along with authorities from the Barbadian Ministry of Foreign Relations.

The screening of Gloria Rolando's film became an interesting account of the cultural relations of our peoples and the marks on our respective national cultures, as well as a recognition of Cuban culture