Cuban Filmmaker Daniel Chile Wins Best Fiction Short Prize at Gibara Poor Film Festival

August 2, 2026

Cuban director Daniel Chile's short film El último juego (The Last Game) won the Premio Lucía for best fiction short at the closing ceremony of the 20th International Poor Film Festival of Gibara, held July 19 in the town of Gibara, Holguín province.

The 24-minute film follows four boys — Antuán, Mulo, Rizo and Naco — through a game that gradually reveals how strategies of masculinity and survival take shape early in a setting marked by emigration and family fragmentation. Chile has said his aim was to examine, without explicit moral judgment, "the impact of context on children's psychology."

El último juego is a co-production of Mirapaká Producciones, i4films and Vedado Films, supported by the Norwegian Film Fund for Cuban Cinema. Its young cast includes Marcelo Martín, Alejandro Domínguez, Daniel Leal and Ernesto Bustamante, with Massiel Dueñas, Andros Perugorría and Karen Machado in supporting roles; cinematographer Alexander González also served as co-producer. Before its run in Gibara, the film had screened in the "Spotlight On Cuba" section of the Miami Film Festival in April 2025.

Born April 12, 1987, in Havana, Daniel Chile is the son of noted Cuban documentary filmmaker Roberto Chile. He trained as an actor at Cuba's National School of Art (ENA) and holds a degree in Social Communication from the University of Havana, along with workshops in cinematography, screenwriting, directing and acting at the International Film and Television School (EICTV) and other Cuban institutions. In 2016 he was selected for the fiction-directing track of the Talents Guadalajara program. His earlier shorts include Tres puntos (2008), Túnel (2010), Tarde para Ramón (2013) and Atrapado (2017). He is now developing his first feature as director, from a screenplay by Cuban writer Amílcar Salatti based on his original concept.

This year's Premio Lucía for best fiction feature went to the Iranian production Arcoíris (Ranginkaman), directed by Saleh Alavizadeh, while the Spanish documentary Lorca en La Habana and the Peruvian animated short Sana took top honors in their respective categories. The festival, founded in 2003, will hold its next edition in April 2027.