Cuban filmmaker Enrique Pineda Barnet dies

January 12, 2021

On the morning of this Tuesday, renowned filmmaker Enrique Pineda Barnet passed away in Havana.

A director, screenwriter, and singular communicator, Pineda Barnet was one of the first filmmakers who worked in areas of experimentation. An example of this is his work Cosmorama (1964).

In 2016, the director of La bella del Alhambra (1989) received the Coral de Honor during the 38th edition of the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema.

The work of Enrique Pineda Barnet has generated much interest. This is demonstrated by university studies from recent years such as Sebastián Pruvost's thesis in 2015 from the University of Burgundy, the distribution of his films in Paris during Cuban culture month, or the screening of Soy Cuba (1964), a film for which he was a co-screenwriter, as reported by the blog El cine es cortar.

In 2006, Cuba's Ministry of Culture and the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) awarded him the National Cinema Prize for the entirety of his career and work.

When he received the "Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres" (Order of Arts and Letters) he expressed: "In childhood, I dreamed of having, for myself alone, A planet, an asteroid, Where I could cultivate a rose forever. But life did not allow me to be that little prince. As an adult, I did not manage to fight battles with capes and swords. Now as an adult, very much an adult, almost too late, The French Government grants me this emblematic condition which I am grateful for and promise to fulfill, Knight of art, of aesthetics and of ethics to launch the arrow toward the horizon."

He will forever be a knight and prince of Cuban cinema. Writer, journalist, screenwriter, actor, and director. He joined ICAIC in 1962, where he made documentaries, experimental films, as well as short and feature-length fiction films throughout a long career.

His film La bella del Alhambra was awarded at Cinemafest, Havana and New York, won the Goya and achieved resounding public success.