"El Mayor" Feature Film Will Arrive on Cuban Screens

March 11, 2020

The film El Mayor, the most recent production of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (Icaic), a work that its director, renowned filmmaker Rigoberto López, left unfinished upon his death in 2019, is ready for its premiere in national theaters starting March 25th.

Benigno Iglesias, vice president of programming at Icaic, informed the press that the premiere of the highly anticipated feature film, which pays tribute to Cuban patriot Ignacio Agramonte, will be on the 24th, coinciding with the official presentation of the 2020 National Film Award on the date of Icaic's 61st anniversary of its founding.

According to Iglesias, the film's usual tour through the country's cinemas will begin on March 25th, with special events in the province of Camagüey, Agramonte's birthplace and where filming took place.

Rigoberto López, with recognized work in documentary and fiction filmmaking, and founder of the Itinerant Caribbean Film Festival, devoted the final moments of his life to completing El Mayor, a project whose post-production was supervised in his absence by experienced cinematographer Ángel Alderete, who was in charge of the direction of photography.

At the meeting, which took place at the Fresa y Chocolate Film Culture Center in this capital, the vice president of programming at Icaic highlighted several of the actions that the Institute will develop during this month to celebrate its 61 years of existence, among them the reopening of its silk-screen printing workshop.

Likewise, he emphasized as very important that work is underway on the renovation of the residence of renowned Cuban intellectual Alfredo Guevara (1925-2013), to install there the permanent headquarters of the Cuban Film Library, an institution that this year reaches six decades since its founding.