Yunior García and Carlos Lechuga among the winners of the Norwegian Fund for Cuban Cinema 2021

November 1, 2021

The Embassy of Norway in Cuba announced the 11 winning projects of the Norwegian Fund for Cuban Cinema this year, among which are the well-known filmmaker Carlos Lechuga and playwright and opposition activist Yunior García.

In its eighth edition, the Fund awarded several projects that "stand out for their presentation, story and creativity," its organizing committee reported.

The information published on the Embassy's official Facebook profile highlights that in 2021 a total of 37 audiovisual materials were submitted for production, and "once the technical review and evaluation of these was completed by a respectable jury and after a difficult debate" it awarded 11 of them.

Among the winning names stands out Vicenta B, which would be the third fiction feature film by young filmmaker Carlos Lechuga, a project that recently won the Egeda award at the San Sebastián Film Festival, as part of the WIP Latam section of the Zinemaldia.

Vicenta B was also one of the winning proposals from the second call of the Cuban Film Promotion Fund (FFCC), whose results were announced almost a year ago.

From that second call of the FFCC, the short film 8 minutos, by playwright, filmmaker and opposition activist Yunior García Aguilera, also won the Norwegian Fund. He is the most visible face of the Archipiélago platform and the "march for change," called for next November 15 and banned by the Cuban government.

Among the remaining winners of the Norwegian Fund are filmmakers of different specialties, as well as feature and short film projects, in addition to fiction and documentary materials.

The Norwegian Fund for Cuban Cinema has been operating since 2014. It seeks to promote film production by independent filmmakers, mostly those who face the most difficulties when financing a film on the Island, a situation that the creation of the FFCC and the Audiovisual Creator Registry by the Island's authorities aims to change.