Reality and imagination in new film by Fernando Pérez of Cuba

February 17, 2020

Fernando Pérez, the most recognized living Cuban filmmaker, confirmed today to Prensa Latina that he has already begun pre-production on his next fiction feature film, which will be based on several short stories.

'I have begun pre-production on a film based on several short stories with a very controversial title, but I believe it will be the definitive one, it is called Rikimbili or the World of Nelsito', he assured this news agency.

Winner in 1982 of the Casa de las Américas literary award in the Testimony genre for his book War Correspondents and the National Cinema Award in 2007, Pérez explained that Nelsito (Rikimbili) is the name of the protagonist, a teenager with great imagination, who suffers an accident and tells his stories from the hospital.

According to the also director of Clandestinos, 'the challenge is that the viewer cannot differentiate what is reality and what belongs to the imagination of this narrator, it is a game of structures'.

When referring to the good reception of Insumisas, his previous film that he co-directed with Laura Cazador, Pérez noted that it addresses a historical theme, from colonial Cuba, and yet it has much contemporary resonance and relevance.

'That was the reason why Laura Cazador and I made this film- he emphasized-, Enriqueta Faber was truly a woman ahead of her time, and we believe that those ideas reach the present and continue to energize our society'.

Pérez made these statements to Prensa Latina at the 29th edition of the International Book Fair of La Habana, which closes its activities today at the San Carlos de La Cabaña venue and begins a tour through the rest of the provinces of the island.

He attended the presentation of volume I of the Writings of Alexander von Humboldt, translated into Spanish by a team coordinated by the world's most important researcher on this subject, doctor Oliver Lubrich, who presented the work, printed by Editorial Herder, of Mexico.

In reference to Humboldt, the filmmaker confessed that he is attracted to his sense of discovery, his vocation of opening new realities to the eyes of any individual.

When evoking the German scholar, he indicated that he is reminded of his father, a dreaming mailman and discoverer of universes through reading.

'His bedside book was the Diary of Navigation of Christopher Columbus, he never left Cuba, but he spoke to me a lot about Humboldt, and about everything that has to do with that going beyond in search of the unknown, that is why I am so interested in the unknown to reveal it to others', concluded the creator.

Winner of the Goya and Ariel awards as director of the Best Iberoamerican Film, Pérez includes in his trajectory the creation of more than 25 films, several of them awarded at festivals on different continents.