Havana and Cuban cinema, in Madrid audiovisual exhibition

June 12, 2019

"Havana is a magical city and when I say this I'm not referring to the geographic space, but to the people, to the Havanans, to that conglomerate that gives diverse character to the city," declared Fernando Pérez, director of Suite Habana (2003), one of the films included in the cycle Cuba in the Audiovisual Imagination, which from this Tuesday through next Monday pays homage in Madrid to the Cuban capital, approaching its 500th anniversary.

In addition to Suite Habana, attendees at the Madrid headquarters of Casa América will be able to see until June 17 the films La bella del Alhambra (Enrique Pineda, 1989), Un hombre de éxito (Humberto Solás, 1986), La muerte de un burócrata (Tomás Gutiérrez-Alea, 1966), Fresa y chocolate (Tomás Gutiérrez-Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío, 1993) and Se permuta (Juan Carlos Tabío, 1983), which in their images traverse various moments and settings of the city.

The objective of the exhibition "is not so much to follow a chronological approach" but "to take into account a criterion of meaning," he stated.

The selection responds to a logic of showing films in which the city plays a leading role, because in Cuban cinema "Havana appears not only as a backdrop, but also as a force with its own dynamics," he added.

"Havana is an outburst of creativity and that magic, aside from the geographic space, the sea and its open relationship with the horizon, has much to do with the communicative character of Havanans," said the renowned Cuban director.

One of the premises of the exhibition is to present viewers the evolution of a cinematography that "has been moving from an epic vision to an everyday perspective, but always with a gaze that seeks complexity," he noted.

The filmmaker believed that "Havana is best portrayed through fiction," but acknowledged that in his filmography "the film most tied to an image of the city is precisely a documentary."

The cycle also commemorates the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) and the centennial of the birth of Santiago Álvarez, the greatest documentarian Cuba has produced and a world reference, whom Fernando Pérez considered "a cinematographic father."

(With information from EFE)