Retamar, a life of adventures, revolutions and poetry

November 26, 2019

The Latin American Film Festival of La Plata, Fesaalp, continued last night with the presentation at the Select cinema of the Pasaje Dardo Rocha of the screening of "El Quijote del Caribe", a documentary feature film directed by Raquel Ruiz, which recreates some of the most significant moments in the life of Cuban poet and intellectual Roberto Fernández Retamar.

A cultural emblem of twentieth-century Cuba, Retamar presided over "Casa de las Américas" for many decades –an entity that connected Cuba with the leading intellectuals of our continent–, and directed the magazine of the same name that came to have, on its editorial board, writers of the caliber of García Márquez, Alejo Carpentier, Mario Benedetti, Mario Vargas Llosa and David Viñas.

The film narrates in the first person –it is the only documentary featuring Roberto Fernández Retamar– a life marked by encounters and challenges, his friendship with Fidel Castro, Haroldo Conti, Julio Cortázar, Rodolfo Walsh, José Lezama Lima, his encounter with Ernest Hemingway, the travels and the endless chess games with Che.

His proud condition as a militiaman during the Bay of Pigs invasion. His profound and courageous debates within the revolution to defend the need for unrestricted creative freedom, and the right to sexual diversity, his reflections on the failure of the communist experience in Russia and countries under its sphere of influence, and the role of young people in the future direction that the revolution should take.

In the film the character and his circumstances are shown, appealing to his most intimate surroundings; to the testimony of his wife, Adelaida de Juan - one of the most important art critics of the continent–, and one of his daughters, Laidi Fernández de Juan, writer and internationalist doctor –who served on a mission for years in Zambia–. The testimony of intellectuals and artists such as Cubans Pablo Milanés and Ambrosio Fornet and Argentines Osvaldo Bayer and Atilio Borón is collected. The music of Silvio Rodriguez is also present, since he granted the film the rights to one of his songs.

The film has as its backdrop - reframing and strengthening each one of the stories that link it together–, the city of La Habana and its mysteries, embodied in this poet who has dedicated his entire life to singing to it.