Filmmaker and film critic Enrique Colina died in La Habana

October 28, 2020

The prominent filmmaker and film critic Enrique Colina Álvarez passed away on October 27 in Havana, after a long battle against cancer, at the age of 76 and with the recognition of Cuban filmmakers, and especially of the people who remember him mainly as the host for 30 years of the television program for film appreciation 24 por segundo.

In reporting the news, the cubacine portal referred to the prolific life and work of this artist, outstanding for his multifaceted work in cinema with the mark of a cultured, questioning and sparkling Cuban spirit.

In a note signed by critic Carlos Galiano, it is recalled that Colina—born on April 27, 1944—studied a degree in Hispanic and French Language and Literature at the University of Havana, and in 1968 began working as a film critic at the Information Center of the Cuban Institute of Film Art and Industry.

This work allowed him to found, in a joint project of the ICAIC and the ICRT, a television program that revolutionized the treatment of information and film criticism in our media, which earned him a very wide and sustained television audience.

In parallel, Colina ventured into filmmaking, first with journalistic reports such as the one he filmed in Portugal about the Carnation Revolution, undoubtedly a gem of the genre, and later with documentaries and fiction shorts such as Vecinos (1985), Más vale tarde…que nunca (1987) and Chapucerías (1988), awarded at various national and international events.

In 2003, he made his only fiction feature film, Entre ciclones.

He also stood out for his theoretical work in the magazine Cine Cubano, and teaching at the International Film and Television School of San Antonio de los Baños. There he served as director of the Documentary Chair, and as senior film professor at the Higher Institute of Art. He conducted film courses and seminars at educational institutions in Cuba and other countries.

Lucid, questioning, polemical, a man of cinema and culture always consistent with positions committed to his principles, Enrique Colina leaves a body of work, as critic and filmmaker, that will undoubtedly be a reference for future generations of filmmakers for his drive for experimentation, renewal and permanent willingness to demystify, through his own use of cinematic language, the very codes of other filmmakers that he systematically and brilliantly dismantled in the late Saturday evening broadcasts of 24 por segundo.

Colina was married to Martha Araujo, presenter of the television program Arte 7, and is survived by his son Enrique Colina. Colina's death constitutes, without a doubt, one of the most significant losses that Cuban culture has experienced this year.