Perugorría eagerly awaits the start of his film and environment festival, Isla Verde

May 30, 2023

Cuban actor, director and visual artist Jorge Perugorría confessed feeling "excited and counting the days" ahead of the debut, next week, of the International Caribbean Film and Environment Festival Isla Verde.

In the midst of the hustle and bustle that represents directing such a project, in the "difficult conditions of Cuba," Perugorría (Havana, 1965) says it makes him "very excited because it can open a path of collaboration among Cuban filmmakers on this issue."

We want the Isle of Youth to become a beacon in terms of environmental conservation for the Caribbean! We know how much a project like this can transform a community, leave a mark!"— @JorgePerugorria
The countdown begins! pic.twitter.com/R6FEnaUHWb

Isla Verde will take place from May 31 to June 5 in the special municipality Isle of Youth, the second largest in area of the Cuban archipelago and located to the southwest about 174 kilometers from Havana.

Perugorría, who began to consolidate his film career with the character of the homosexual intellectual Diego in the Cuban film Strawberry and Chocolate (1993), intends with this initiative to make visible the environmental challenges facing the Caribbean.

In addition, "to accompany the Isle of Youth (formerly Isle of Pines) in an environmental transformation so that it can become a reference for conservation," he stated to Efe from his gallery, the Taller Gorría, in the Havana neighborhood of San Isidro.

This first edition of the Festival will not be competitive, but will present honorary awards to Mexican film director Eleonora Isunza and to the world record holder in freediving, Cuban Deborah Andollo, Perugorría announced in advance.

The film event proposes a retrospective exhibition of the work of environmental activist and French documentarian Yann Arthus-Bertrand, to whom it will also pay tribute at this gathering, added its director.

It also includes a posthumous tribute to Cuban singer Osmel Francis, who contributed with years of his work to environmental preservation.

Several of the films and documentaries to be screened at the festival were provided by the Good Planet Foundation (directed by Bertrand), Cinema Planeta and the International Green Film Network Association, a network that brings together more than 30 environmental festivals from around the world.

The program, according to the festival's director, includes the screening of works made in Cuba with the support of the Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation, dedicated for years to the work of environmental preservation.

"We will work with children, adolescents and young people and we have specialists who will screen films and then lectures, an environmental education program. Here we are advised by Cinema Planeta which has great experience on that subject," he announced.

The versatile Cuban actor, with an extensive and multi-awarded career in Cuba and other countries, speaks of Isla Verde with the same enthusiasm he brings to every new project.

"We will plant 3,000 pines to offset the carbon footprint generated by the event itself and we want to thus convert that forest into the 'forest of cinema' because it is an action that we will do every year," he explains.

Isla Verde, First International Caribbean Film and Environment Festival

The festival closes on June 5, World Environment Day, with a concert by Cuban troubadour Silvio Rodríguez, "someone consistent who has been working for many years with the Ariguanabo Foundation cleaning up the San Antonio de los Baños river," he comments.

Perugorría sees this project "as a film" whose result will be "for the Isle of Youth, and for Cuba."