When Americans think of Cuba, we tend to think of a place, and not a people. The same was true of East Germany, it’s still true of North Korea, and it will always be true of countries that are defined by their inaccessibility. Borders are blinding, and islands are isolated by more than just water. Only 105 miles separate Havana from Key West, but you can’t see anything on the horizon when you stand at the bottom tip of the United States and stare into the ocean.
Filmmaker Jon Alpert has spent his entire adult life trying to bring those two worlds closer together, and his simple but enthralling new documentary culls from almost 50 years’ worth of footage from his trips to the land of Fidel. Alpert has two Oscars to his name (both for Best Documentary Short), but most of his work in Cuba has been for archival purposes,...
Filmmaker Jon Alpert has spent his entire adult life trying to bring those two worlds closer together, and his simple but enthralling new documentary culls from almost 50 years’ worth of footage from his trips to the land of Fidel. Alpert has two Oscars to his name (both for Best Documentary Short), but most of his work in Cuba has been for archival purposes,...
- 11/22/2017
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Could there be a more perfect moment than this? Sitting in the garden behind the Hotel Nacional, looking at the Cuban flag so proudly waving over the Straits of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. The same site where the defense was built during the Cuban Missile Crisis, this moment of time marks a particularly precarious balance between peaceful coexistence and military aggression as we contemplate the recent death of Castro and election of Trump, wondering how it will play out in 2017.Hotel Nacional, Headquarters of Festival de Cine Nuevo Iberoamericano, Havana, Cuba
Cuba, ten days after the death of Fidel Castro, head of state for 52 years,may be a bit more subdued, but life here goes on, even with the influx of American tourists (other tourists have always been here); there is a sense of harmony. And in spite of the scarcity of luxuries for its people, the people...
Cuba, ten days after the death of Fidel Castro, head of state for 52 years,may be a bit more subdued, but life here goes on, even with the influx of American tourists (other tourists have always been here); there is a sense of harmony. And in spite of the scarcity of luxuries for its people, the people...
- 12/29/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
After easing restrictions on U.S. visitors earlier this year for the first time in decades, Cuba is newly at the top of many travelers’ must-see lists.
Several U.S-based. airlines now provide service to the island — JetBlue introduced the first direct flight (Ft. Lauderdale to Santa Clara) in September, and now offers direct routes from New York’s JFK Airport to Havana, with other major airlines following suit. President Obama visited in March, and many celebrities including Jay Z, Beyonce and Madonna have made the trip. Rihanna even shot a Vanity Fair cover story in Havana in 2015.
Related: Grab...
Several U.S-based. airlines now provide service to the island — JetBlue introduced the first direct flight (Ft. Lauderdale to Santa Clara) in September, and now offers direct routes from New York’s JFK Airport to Havana, with other major airlines following suit. President Obama visited in March, and many celebrities including Jay Z, Beyonce and Madonna have made the trip. Rihanna even shot a Vanity Fair cover story in Havana in 2015.
Related: Grab...
- 12/7/2016
- by Mackenzie Schmidt
- PEOPLE.com
Fidel Castro, Cuba's longtime revolutionary leader who defied the United States for nearly half a century, died Friday. He was 90 years old.
Castro had been suffering from declining health for several years. The communist dictator, known for bringing the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere in 1959, "devilling 11 American presidents and briefly pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war," as The New York Times reported, ceded his power to his younger brother, Raul Castro, due to an intestinal illness eight years ago. Fidel officially resigned as president in February 2008, and Raul took over permanently.
Watch: Khloe Kardashian Says She's 'So Blessed to Be Able to Appreciate Another's Culture' Amid Stirring Controversy with 'Fidel' Pic in Cuba
Raul announced his brother's death Friday on Cuban television. Following the news, many political figures, journalists and celebrities took to social media to share their reactions on Castro, who famously survived numerous assassination attempts by the CIA and anti-Castro exiles...
Castro had been suffering from declining health for several years. The communist dictator, known for bringing the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere in 1959, "devilling 11 American presidents and briefly pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war," as The New York Times reported, ceded his power to his younger brother, Raul Castro, due to an intestinal illness eight years ago. Fidel officially resigned as president in February 2008, and Raul took over permanently.
Watch: Khloe Kardashian Says She's 'So Blessed to Be Able to Appreciate Another's Culture' Amid Stirring Controversy with 'Fidel' Pic in Cuba
Raul announced his brother's death Friday on Cuban television. Following the news, many political figures, journalists and celebrities took to social media to share their reactions on Castro, who famously survived numerous assassination attempts by the CIA and anti-Castro exiles...
- 11/26/2016
- Entertainment Tonight
Fidel Castro, the Cuban “Liíder Máximo” who died at 90 on Friday, was a subject of fascination for Hollywood. Figures from Oliver Stone to Harry Belafonte to Steven Spielberg traveled to Cuba to meet him over the years. Here are some of the Hollywood luminaries who met with Castro, or tried to, and offered words of admiration despite the leader’s tainted record on human rights. Sean Penn in Cuba: Hollywood's Still in Love With Fidel: Sean Penn in Cuba: Hollywood's Still in Love With Fidel Getty Images Film director Steven Spielberg accepted an invitation in 2002 from Cuba’s film institute to attend a.
- 11/26/2016
- by Sharon Waxman
- The Wrap
Reel-Important People is a monthly column that highlights those individuals in or related to the movies that have left us in recent weeks. Below you'll find names big and small and from all areas of the industry, though each was significant to the movies in his or her own way. Muhammad Ali (1942-2016) - Boxer. One of the most famous athletes of all time, he starred in his own 1977 biopic, The Greatest, which was based on his autobiography. He also stars as the main subject in the documentaries We Were Kings (see below), The Rumble in the Jungle, The Trials of Muhammad Ali, and I Am Ali, and appears in the docs Malcolm X, Norman Mailer: The American, Champions Forever, Soul Power, and Fidel, and in the fiction...
Read More...
Read More...
- 7/1/2016
- by Christopher Campbell
- Movies.com
- 5/9/2016
- by Kelsey Garcia
- Popsugar.com
The Kardashians are taking over Cuba – but not without controversy.
On Wednesday, Khloé Kardashian shared a photo on Instagram of herself posing in sexy attire under a Fidel Castro inscribed into a wall in Havana.
Havana
A photo posted by Khloe (@khloekardashian) on May 4, 2016 at 7:26pm Pdt
Within seconds of the picture hitting social media, an influx of angry comments were posted questioning the reality star's choice to align herself with the dictator through the photo.
A slew of followers called the 31-year-old "ignorant" and "insensitive," while others demanded she take down the photo.
South Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen,...
On Wednesday, Khloé Kardashian shared a photo on Instagram of herself posing in sexy attire under a Fidel Castro inscribed into a wall in Havana.
Havana
A photo posted by Khloe (@khloekardashian) on May 4, 2016 at 7:26pm Pdt
Within seconds of the picture hitting social media, an influx of angry comments were posted questioning the reality star's choice to align herself with the dictator through the photo.
A slew of followers called the 31-year-old "ignorant" and "insensitive," while others demanded she take down the photo.
South Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen,...
- 5/5/2016
- by Brittany King, @brrriitttnnii
- People.com - TV Watch
The Kardashians are taking over Cuba - but not without controversy. On Wednesday, Khloé Kardashian shared a photo on Instagram of herself posing in sexy attire under a Fidel Castro inscribed into a wall in Havana. Havana A photo posted by Khloe (@khloekardashian) on May 4, 2016 at 7:26pm Pdt Within seconds of the picture hitting social media, an influx of angry comments were posted questioning the reality star's choice to align herself with the dictator through the photo. A slew of followers called the 31-year-old "ignorant" and "insensitive," while others demanded she take down the photo. South Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen,...
- 5/5/2016
- by Brittany King, @brrriitttnnii
- PEOPLE.com
The Kardashians are taking over Cuba - but not without controversy. On Wednesday, Khloé Kardashian shared a photo on Instagram of herself posing in sexy attire under a Fidel Castro inscribed into a wall in Havana. Within seconds of the picture hitting social media, an influx of angry comments were posted questioning the reality star's choice to align herself with the dictator through the photo. A slew of followers called the 31-year-old "ignorant" and "insensitive," while others demanded she take down the photo. South Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who was previously critical of the family told People amid the uproar:...
- 5/5/2016
- by Brittany King, @brrriitttnnii
- PEOPLE.com
The article below, written by People En ESPAÑOL's editor in chief, Armando Correa, originally appeared on PeopleenEspanol.com.I'm a terrible Cuban. One of the worst. I spent 17 years without setting foot on the island where I was born, I avoid the unending debates about Cuba and I'm aware of what’s happening in that part of world only when New York newspapers or newscasts mention it, which is almost never. From the time I left in 1991, Cuba has been a terrible nightmare for me. So, when Cevin Bryerman, vice president and editor of Publishers Weekly, told me last summer...
- 2/26/2016
- by Armando Correa
- PEOPLE.com
The article below, written by People En ESPAÑOL's editor in chief, Armando Correa, originally appeared on PeopleenEspanol.com.I'm a terrible Cuban. One of the worst. I spent 17 years without setting foot on the island where I was born, I avoid the unending debates about Cuba and I'm aware of what’s happening in that part of world only when New York newspapers or newscasts mention it, which is almost never. From the time I left in 1991, Cuba has been a terrible nightmare for me. So, when Cevin Bryerman, vice president and editor of Publishers Weekly, told me last summer...
- 2/26/2016
- by Armando Correa
- PEOPLE.com
Jennifer Lawrence is headed to Cuba - on the big screen, that is. The 25-year-old Oscar winner has signed on to star as Fidel Castro's onetime lover in Sony Pictures' Marita, Entertainment Weekly reports. Now 76, Marita Lorenz had an affair with Castro during the Cuban revolution in the 1950s. Lorenz became pregnant at only 19, but had an abortion before leaving Cuba. She was then recruited by the CIA to assassinate then-Prime Minister Castro. In addition, the German-born Lorenz testified about the John F. Kennedy assassination and later penned two autobiographies - Marita: One Woman's Extraordinary Tale of Love and...
- 1/20/2016
- by Lindsay Kimble
- PEOPLE.com
Jennifer Lawrence is headed to Cuba - on the big screen, that is. The 25-year-old Oscar winner has signed on to star as Fidel Castro's onetime lover in Sony Pictures' Marita, Entertainment Weekly reports. Now 76, Marita Lorenz had an affair with Castro during the Cuban revolution in the 1950s. Lorenz became pregnant at only 19, but had an abortion before leaving Cuba. She was then recruited by the CIA to assassinate then-Prime Minister Castro. In addition, the German-born Lorenz testified about the John F. Kennedy assassination and later penned two autobiographies - Marita: One Woman's Extraordinary Tale of Love and...
- 1/20/2016
- by Lindsay Kimble
- PEOPLE.com
Albert Maysles: Gimme Some Truth
By
Alex Simon
I'm sick and tired of hearing things/From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics/All I want is the truth/Just gimme some truth/I've had enough of reading things/By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians/All I want is the truth/Just gimme some truth. – John Lennon
Albert and David Maysles are generally regarded as the fathers of the modern American documentary film. Beginning in the early 1960s, their pioneering work with contemporaries such as Robert Drew, Richard Leacock and D.A. Pennebaker helped launch the “Direct Cinema” movement, devoted to capturing real life as closely as possible, in all its unscripted reality. Today, filmmakers like Michael Moore, reality TV and every news magazine on the air and on the web can trace their linage back to the Maysles brothers.
Their three defining features: Salesman (1968), a sobering and often hilarious look at the lives...
By
Alex Simon
I'm sick and tired of hearing things/From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics/All I want is the truth/Just gimme some truth/I've had enough of reading things/By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians/All I want is the truth/Just gimme some truth. – John Lennon
Albert and David Maysles are generally regarded as the fathers of the modern American documentary film. Beginning in the early 1960s, their pioneering work with contemporaries such as Robert Drew, Richard Leacock and D.A. Pennebaker helped launch the “Direct Cinema” movement, devoted to capturing real life as closely as possible, in all its unscripted reality. Today, filmmakers like Michael Moore, reality TV and every news magazine on the air and on the web can trace their linage back to the Maysles brothers.
Their three defining features: Salesman (1968), a sobering and often hilarious look at the lives...
- 4/10/2014
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
American film-maker who caused uproar with his 1968 documentary de-demonising Cuba's leader, Fidel Castro
In 1970, New York's Fifth Avenue Cinema was bombed and the Haymarket theatre in Los Angeles was burned down in order to prevent a certain movie from being screened. The inflammatory film was Fidel, a documentary directed by Saul Landau, who has died aged 77 of bladder cancer.
Fidel, the cause of anger among anti-Castro Cuban exiles, was the extraordinary film record of a weeklong jeep tour of the eastern mountains region of Cuba on which Landau accompanied Castro in 1968. The 95-minute feature, which de-demonised the charismatic Cuban leader for the American public, was finally shown in selected theatres around the Us and on the PBS network, except in Florida. A bomb was thrown through a window at a New York television station during the broadcast.
Landau, who made several pro-Cuban films, and many other left-leaning features and television documentaries,...
In 1970, New York's Fifth Avenue Cinema was bombed and the Haymarket theatre in Los Angeles was burned down in order to prevent a certain movie from being screened. The inflammatory film was Fidel, a documentary directed by Saul Landau, who has died aged 77 of bladder cancer.
Fidel, the cause of anger among anti-Castro Cuban exiles, was the extraordinary film record of a weeklong jeep tour of the eastern mountains region of Cuba on which Landau accompanied Castro in 1968. The 95-minute feature, which de-demonised the charismatic Cuban leader for the American public, was finally shown in selected theatres around the Us and on the PBS network, except in Florida. A bomb was thrown through a window at a New York television station during the broadcast.
Landau, who made several pro-Cuban films, and many other left-leaning features and television documentaries,...
- 9/16/2013
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Washington, Sep 12 (Ians/Efe) Writer and Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker Saul Landau, one of whose productions was on Fidel Castro, has died after battling cancer at his home in California.
The 77-year-old filmed more than 40 documentaries, including the 1968 "Fidel", based on a week-long trip around Cuba with the now ill Castro. He died Wednesday.
Among other topics addressed by Landau in his films were the 1970-73 government of Chilean president Salvador Allende and the 1994 Zapatista uprising in Mexico.
The 1979 documentary, 'Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang', co-directed by Landau and Jack Willis, won an Emmy and the George Polk Award for investigative reporting.
The documentary explored health effects.
The 77-year-old filmed more than 40 documentaries, including the 1968 "Fidel", based on a week-long trip around Cuba with the now ill Castro. He died Wednesday.
Among other topics addressed by Landau in his films were the 1970-73 government of Chilean president Salvador Allende and the 1994 Zapatista uprising in Mexico.
The 1979 documentary, 'Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang', co-directed by Landau and Jack Willis, won an Emmy and the George Polk Award for investigative reporting.
The documentary explored health effects.
- 9/12/2013
- by Diksha Singh
- RealBollywood.com
After the success of Time After Time, novelist and screenwriter Karl Alexander began looking for another project. It was at that time that shifts started to happen on his road to success that he could never have imagined. In Part Two Karl talks about the road he's traveled. Need a refresher? Catch up with part one of Del's interview with Karl Alexander.
FEARnet: Then what happened?
Karl Alexander: What happened was I had an agent that I got shortly thereafter thanks to Nick Meyers’ attorney. He was supposedly a book agent and he is actually relatively famous. His initials are Mike Hamilburg. I wrote another book very quickly (A Private Investigation). It was a detective story about a woman detective which at the time was pretty cutting edge. I sold the film rights of that to Elizabeth Montgomery and they made a movie out of it (Missing Pieces -...
FEARnet: Then what happened?
Karl Alexander: What happened was I had an agent that I got shortly thereafter thanks to Nick Meyers’ attorney. He was supposedly a book agent and he is actually relatively famous. His initials are Mike Hamilburg. I wrote another book very quickly (A Private Investigation). It was a detective story about a woman detective which at the time was pretty cutting edge. I sold the film rights of that to Elizabeth Montgomery and they made a movie out of it (Missing Pieces -...
- 4/15/2013
- by Del Howison
- FEARnet
It’s Cuba! Where else would The Havana International Film Festival’s Opening and Closing Night take place except in The Karl Marx Theater? Opening with music by Cuba’s greatest salsa group, Los Van Van, the 34th edition is still headed by its founder and Fidel Castro’s teacher in Communism, Alfredo Guevara, who dedicated this edition to the new generation of filmmakers which represents the future of cinema. The 10 day festival showcased a broad range of new and not-so-new films from Cuba, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Peru and fellow Caribbean nations, Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica, Curacao and others whose cinema is being aided by their governments and whose youth is creating a new international cinema with the support of Europe and even, sometimes, Asia.
While this edition paid homage to the youth, also present and recalled were the members of the generations from the ‘60s like Aldo Francia, Chileans Miguel Littin, Patricio Guzman, Jorge Sanjines, Fernado Birri, Fernando Solano, Cacho Pallero, Santiago Alvarez, Glauber Roch, Carlos Diegues, Leon Hizsman, Juaquim Pedro, Tomas Guierrez Alea, Mario Handler, Walter Achugar and many others who in the years ‘67 and ‘68 were themselves inspired by such luminaries as Joris Ivens. Together they were the originators of the phenomenon El Cine de America Latina or New Latin American Cinema influenced mainly by Italian neorealism and other movements of social cinema. Its function was to go against U.S. models and to illuminate the troubled realities of Latin America in the hope of restoring cinema of the continent. Its key moment was the meeting of Latin American Cinema 1967 , which had its impetus in the Chilean Aldo Francia , the Cinema Club of Viña del Mar , the Cuban Alfredo Guevara, the Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Film (Icaic) and the Argentine Edgardo Pallero.
Illuminaries such as Annette Benning whose film The Kids are All Right was screening there and Hawk Koch, president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, wrote fan letters to Fidel and Raoul and then mixed and caught up with the top critics and journalists of Latin America and festival participants in the gardens of the Hotel Nacional. Miguel Litten and spouse, the parents of Chile’s Christina Littin, one of Chile’s current top producer/ distributors, were often seen there. Their presence reminded me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s book Clandestine in Chile about the time when Miguel disguised himself to reenter Pinochet’s Chile from whence he had been exiled. So many stories of exile and return mark the modern history of Latin America.
The first day of the Havana festival was devoted to Eictv, the international film school that Gabriel Garcia Marquez founded in 1986 with his Nobel Prize money on land donated by Cuba. Today it is headed by Rafael Rosal who in his own country, Guatemala, set up the first infrastructure for a film industry – a film school, a film festival and production facilities.
Eictv has a student body from everywhere in Latin America, Europe and even from North America. Last year as the emissary for Woodbury University in Burbank CA, I brought them their first agreement with a U.S. institution and exchanges between students and staff have already begun, bringing TV documentary filmmaker Rolando Almirante for a second time to teach documentaries.
Eictv’s event at the Festival de Cine Nuevo en Habana is Nuevas Miradas, 12 chosen projects whose producers and directors present themselves to the industry and compete for three awards.
Coincidently with the lateness of this blog which I wrote from the Palm Springs International Film Festival -- some of Eictv’s staff’s and students’ films were among Psff’s 22 Latino projects vying for the Cine Latino Prize being offered by Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara. This fact along shows a new unity of purpose among the Latino countries and their festivals (Cuba, Guadalajara and Palm Springs, which as part of the Coachella Valley, has the largest Latino population in the United States.) Among the 22 candidates for Psff’s Best Iberoamerican film were Clandestine Childhood (Argentina/ Brazil/Spain) by Benjamín Ávila, who was the coordinator of Fiction at Eictv and screenwriter Marcelo Muller also participated in Eictv; La Voz Dormida (España) of the emerging filmmaker Benito Zambrano, and 7 Boxes (Paraguay) co-directed by Juan Carlos Maneglia, a student in many of the workshops of Eictv. Eictv considers this exchange of ideas and talents as globally important.
The winners of Nuevas Miradas should be watched as one or several reach fruition. Last year The Visitor (Chile) won and has since raised the budget for a feature length film debut.
The projects, Un Viejo Traje, Moora Moora directed by Australian Rhiannon Stevens and produced by Chilean Esme Joffre, Tus padres volverán directed by Uruguayan Pablo Martínez and produced by Virginia Hinze, Cocodrilos tomando el sol, Cuerpos Celestes by Mexican director Lorena Padilla and producer Liliana Bravo, Revolución de las polleras by Bolivian director Sergio Estrada and producer Valeria Ponce received recognition and free software from Assimilate.
The documentary, Un Viejo Traje (aka The Old Suit), by Cuban director Damián Saínz (a student of Eictv) and producer Viana González received a $2,000 prize.
Fiction project, Cocodrilos tomando el sol, directed by Colombian Carlos Rojas and the Venezuelan producer Carolina Graterol, received a $1,000 prize and a course in directing at Eictv.
A film package for those interested in Cuban film programming
Ann Cross, a Scottish woman married to a Trinidadian is always in Havana. She programs the best selection of current Cuban features for U.K. distribution. This year she gave me this list of her favorites and many people concurred with her.
Y sin embargo (aka Nevertheless) by Rudy Mora also won the Beijing Film Festival prize which is surprising in that it is about school children challenging the school system, and challenging any systems in China (and perhaps in Cuba as well) is highly problematic. The child actors are exceptional. The type of burlesque comedy is typical of Cuba. Produced and Isa (international sales agent) is the Cuban government film group Icaic.
Irredemediablemente Juntos (aka Irredeemably Together) by Jorge Luis Sanchez Gonzalez is brave and challenging. Purportedly about classical music and Cuban music and the conflict between the two, it is really about race and the synthesis between black and white, Cuban and European Classical is reached in the story.
Cresciendo en la musica is about teaching music to children.
El sangre en la casa, en la escuela y en la calle (aka Blood in the House, in the School and in the Street) is a British-Cuban coproduction about Matanza, a town just outside of Havana where Cuban music roots are.
La piscine (aka The Swimming Pool) by Calvo Machado might not stand alone in the U.S. but would be good in a package.
Binchi by Eduardo Galano is about the 2 classes clashing in prison.
At the top of Ann’s list and on top of many others’ lists is Melaza.
What I saw and liked
It was also a time for me to catch up of Latin American cinema I have missed. My favorite was Chilean film Jueves a Domingo (aka from Thursday to Sunday) by Dominga Sotomayer. This road trip by a young couple and their 7 year old son and 11 year old daughter tells a story through the daughter’s eye of a loving family’s vacation and their father’s decision to move from Santiago to the countryside. We never know what he is getting away from (Pinochet?) but we see what is supposed to be a vacation transforms the family’s wholeness. The loving light touch of Sotomayer reminds me of Eric Rohmer’s four films of the seasons.
Lucie Malloy’s Una Noche was mobbed by the Cuban public wanting to see this film about two young defectors from Cuba; the police were called to break up the crowd and the overflow had a special screening set up. We hear that the young woman star who defected with her costar on the way to the Tribeca Film Festival and who landed up in Las Vegas is now in “exile mode” bewailing how she misses her family. La probrecita!! Yet another exile story. Had she waited a month, travel from Cuba would be legal. Una Noche is now here in Palm Springs as well, competitng for the Cine Latino Prize.
Other films I saw and liked
El Limpiador and Ombras were both without subtitles (as was Pablo Lorrain’s closing night film No) and so I could only watch a part of them. However I did see El Limpiador here in Palm Springs and was impressed with its simplicity and its authenticity and loving heart. A low tech take on a mysterious illness killing people in the Peruvian city of Lima, the film was simple, sometimes funny and in the end very satisfying.
A film which divided the audience neatly between men and women was the Brazilian feature Brecha Silencia (aka Breaching the Silence) about domestic violence from which 3 siblings barely escape. The subject of violence toward women was also the subject of a short which showed in every public screening. Called Ya No, this short Latin American backed PSA brings public awareness to the unacceptable violent behavior of men toward women often found in schools, in dating, and in homes.
Desde de Lucia playing in Palm Springs also takes on the subject of bullying, this time in a bourgeois Mexican school and centering on a teenage girl who has recently lost her mother.
Taken by Storm
The next segment of the festival was taken up with Trinidad + Tobago Film Festival (t+tff). Emilie Upszak, Artistic Director of t+tff, whom I had met in Havana last year through Icaic’s Luis Notario, and Bruce Paddington the founder and exec director of t+tff were in Havana with a delegation of filmmakers and their films. Since I had missed them all during the extraordinary experience I had at t+tff, I got to see Storm Saulter’s Better Mus Come which has been picked up by the new African Diaspora film distributor for U.S. Affrm (African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement).
Storm is Jamaican and took film courses at L.A. Film School, that large private film school on Sunset near Vine, across from the Arclight Theater, where many foreign students go and where many vets go seeking to learn filmmaking. Storm, however, had been making films since he was a kid using super 8mm and at the ripe old age of 27, he has since formed a collective in Jamaica called, the New Caribbean Cinema. His new fiction feature Better Mus Come screened at Trinidad + Tobago film festival and showed here in Havana as well. He will be announcing an international sales agent and a U.S. distributor very soon.
What fun and interesting days and evenings and nights I had with the t+tff folks.
We heard live music, I danced salsa with a Puerto Rican Actor/ Director who dances salsa and has a short in the festival.
Salsa in Havana seems to be losing steam. Reggaeton closes every dance event as the drunken, monotonous final act before going home. However in Jamaica it is transforming itself into Dancehall (what could be more sexual than that except for sex itself?). There is also Rumba, the traditional dance of Afro-Cubans. It is now taking new forms as the newest generation of Cuba takes the stage. Woodbury faculty, in Havana on a hosted tour with the Jose Marti Cultural Institute, led by my friend Cookie Fischer were invited to the top of the Lincoln Hotel on the night the world was to end (remember the Mayan calendar prediction?) and we danced the night away to the live music of Septeto Nacional a 70 year old group. Son was my dance of choice there. For those of you who want to see Cuba before the transition is over, now is the time. You can travel legally from L.A. and Miami, Mexico or anywhere else in the world with a general license. Take advantage of it Now as it is going to get more crowded with tourists. For us film folk, we get a privileged perch, so plan on next December taking in a week of films plus another week or two to see a country whose land and people are unique in Latin America and the Caribbean.
While this edition paid homage to the youth, also present and recalled were the members of the generations from the ‘60s like Aldo Francia, Chileans Miguel Littin, Patricio Guzman, Jorge Sanjines, Fernado Birri, Fernando Solano, Cacho Pallero, Santiago Alvarez, Glauber Roch, Carlos Diegues, Leon Hizsman, Juaquim Pedro, Tomas Guierrez Alea, Mario Handler, Walter Achugar and many others who in the years ‘67 and ‘68 were themselves inspired by such luminaries as Joris Ivens. Together they were the originators of the phenomenon El Cine de America Latina or New Latin American Cinema influenced mainly by Italian neorealism and other movements of social cinema. Its function was to go against U.S. models and to illuminate the troubled realities of Latin America in the hope of restoring cinema of the continent. Its key moment was the meeting of Latin American Cinema 1967 , which had its impetus in the Chilean Aldo Francia , the Cinema Club of Viña del Mar , the Cuban Alfredo Guevara, the Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Film (Icaic) and the Argentine Edgardo Pallero.
Illuminaries such as Annette Benning whose film The Kids are All Right was screening there and Hawk Koch, president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, wrote fan letters to Fidel and Raoul and then mixed and caught up with the top critics and journalists of Latin America and festival participants in the gardens of the Hotel Nacional. Miguel Litten and spouse, the parents of Chile’s Christina Littin, one of Chile’s current top producer/ distributors, were often seen there. Their presence reminded me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s book Clandestine in Chile about the time when Miguel disguised himself to reenter Pinochet’s Chile from whence he had been exiled. So many stories of exile and return mark the modern history of Latin America.
The first day of the Havana festival was devoted to Eictv, the international film school that Gabriel Garcia Marquez founded in 1986 with his Nobel Prize money on land donated by Cuba. Today it is headed by Rafael Rosal who in his own country, Guatemala, set up the first infrastructure for a film industry – a film school, a film festival and production facilities.
Eictv has a student body from everywhere in Latin America, Europe and even from North America. Last year as the emissary for Woodbury University in Burbank CA, I brought them their first agreement with a U.S. institution and exchanges between students and staff have already begun, bringing TV documentary filmmaker Rolando Almirante for a second time to teach documentaries.
Eictv’s event at the Festival de Cine Nuevo en Habana is Nuevas Miradas, 12 chosen projects whose producers and directors present themselves to the industry and compete for three awards.
Coincidently with the lateness of this blog which I wrote from the Palm Springs International Film Festival -- some of Eictv’s staff’s and students’ films were among Psff’s 22 Latino projects vying for the Cine Latino Prize being offered by Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara. This fact along shows a new unity of purpose among the Latino countries and their festivals (Cuba, Guadalajara and Palm Springs, which as part of the Coachella Valley, has the largest Latino population in the United States.) Among the 22 candidates for Psff’s Best Iberoamerican film were Clandestine Childhood (Argentina/ Brazil/Spain) by Benjamín Ávila, who was the coordinator of Fiction at Eictv and screenwriter Marcelo Muller also participated in Eictv; La Voz Dormida (España) of the emerging filmmaker Benito Zambrano, and 7 Boxes (Paraguay) co-directed by Juan Carlos Maneglia, a student in many of the workshops of Eictv. Eictv considers this exchange of ideas and talents as globally important.
The winners of Nuevas Miradas should be watched as one or several reach fruition. Last year The Visitor (Chile) won and has since raised the budget for a feature length film debut.
The projects, Un Viejo Traje, Moora Moora directed by Australian Rhiannon Stevens and produced by Chilean Esme Joffre, Tus padres volverán directed by Uruguayan Pablo Martínez and produced by Virginia Hinze, Cocodrilos tomando el sol, Cuerpos Celestes by Mexican director Lorena Padilla and producer Liliana Bravo, Revolución de las polleras by Bolivian director Sergio Estrada and producer Valeria Ponce received recognition and free software from Assimilate.
The documentary, Un Viejo Traje (aka The Old Suit), by Cuban director Damián Saínz (a student of Eictv) and producer Viana González received a $2,000 prize.
Fiction project, Cocodrilos tomando el sol, directed by Colombian Carlos Rojas and the Venezuelan producer Carolina Graterol, received a $1,000 prize and a course in directing at Eictv.
A film package for those interested in Cuban film programming
Ann Cross, a Scottish woman married to a Trinidadian is always in Havana. She programs the best selection of current Cuban features for U.K. distribution. This year she gave me this list of her favorites and many people concurred with her.
Y sin embargo (aka Nevertheless) by Rudy Mora also won the Beijing Film Festival prize which is surprising in that it is about school children challenging the school system, and challenging any systems in China (and perhaps in Cuba as well) is highly problematic. The child actors are exceptional. The type of burlesque comedy is typical of Cuba. Produced and Isa (international sales agent) is the Cuban government film group Icaic.
Irredemediablemente Juntos (aka Irredeemably Together) by Jorge Luis Sanchez Gonzalez is brave and challenging. Purportedly about classical music and Cuban music and the conflict between the two, it is really about race and the synthesis between black and white, Cuban and European Classical is reached in the story.
Cresciendo en la musica is about teaching music to children.
El sangre en la casa, en la escuela y en la calle (aka Blood in the House, in the School and in the Street) is a British-Cuban coproduction about Matanza, a town just outside of Havana where Cuban music roots are.
La piscine (aka The Swimming Pool) by Calvo Machado might not stand alone in the U.S. but would be good in a package.
Binchi by Eduardo Galano is about the 2 classes clashing in prison.
At the top of Ann’s list and on top of many others’ lists is Melaza.
What I saw and liked
It was also a time for me to catch up of Latin American cinema I have missed. My favorite was Chilean film Jueves a Domingo (aka from Thursday to Sunday) by Dominga Sotomayer. This road trip by a young couple and their 7 year old son and 11 year old daughter tells a story through the daughter’s eye of a loving family’s vacation and their father’s decision to move from Santiago to the countryside. We never know what he is getting away from (Pinochet?) but we see what is supposed to be a vacation transforms the family’s wholeness. The loving light touch of Sotomayer reminds me of Eric Rohmer’s four films of the seasons.
Lucie Malloy’s Una Noche was mobbed by the Cuban public wanting to see this film about two young defectors from Cuba; the police were called to break up the crowd and the overflow had a special screening set up. We hear that the young woman star who defected with her costar on the way to the Tribeca Film Festival and who landed up in Las Vegas is now in “exile mode” bewailing how she misses her family. La probrecita!! Yet another exile story. Had she waited a month, travel from Cuba would be legal. Una Noche is now here in Palm Springs as well, competitng for the Cine Latino Prize.
Other films I saw and liked
El Limpiador and Ombras were both without subtitles (as was Pablo Lorrain’s closing night film No) and so I could only watch a part of them. However I did see El Limpiador here in Palm Springs and was impressed with its simplicity and its authenticity and loving heart. A low tech take on a mysterious illness killing people in the Peruvian city of Lima, the film was simple, sometimes funny and in the end very satisfying.
A film which divided the audience neatly between men and women was the Brazilian feature Brecha Silencia (aka Breaching the Silence) about domestic violence from which 3 siblings barely escape. The subject of violence toward women was also the subject of a short which showed in every public screening. Called Ya No, this short Latin American backed PSA brings public awareness to the unacceptable violent behavior of men toward women often found in schools, in dating, and in homes.
Desde de Lucia playing in Palm Springs also takes on the subject of bullying, this time in a bourgeois Mexican school and centering on a teenage girl who has recently lost her mother.
Taken by Storm
The next segment of the festival was taken up with Trinidad + Tobago Film Festival (t+tff). Emilie Upszak, Artistic Director of t+tff, whom I had met in Havana last year through Icaic’s Luis Notario, and Bruce Paddington the founder and exec director of t+tff were in Havana with a delegation of filmmakers and their films. Since I had missed them all during the extraordinary experience I had at t+tff, I got to see Storm Saulter’s Better Mus Come which has been picked up by the new African Diaspora film distributor for U.S. Affrm (African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement).
Storm is Jamaican and took film courses at L.A. Film School, that large private film school on Sunset near Vine, across from the Arclight Theater, where many foreign students go and where many vets go seeking to learn filmmaking. Storm, however, had been making films since he was a kid using super 8mm and at the ripe old age of 27, he has since formed a collective in Jamaica called, the New Caribbean Cinema. His new fiction feature Better Mus Come screened at Trinidad + Tobago film festival and showed here in Havana as well. He will be announcing an international sales agent and a U.S. distributor very soon.
What fun and interesting days and evenings and nights I had with the t+tff folks.
We heard live music, I danced salsa with a Puerto Rican Actor/ Director who dances salsa and has a short in the festival.
Salsa in Havana seems to be losing steam. Reggaeton closes every dance event as the drunken, monotonous final act before going home. However in Jamaica it is transforming itself into Dancehall (what could be more sexual than that except for sex itself?). There is also Rumba, the traditional dance of Afro-Cubans. It is now taking new forms as the newest generation of Cuba takes the stage. Woodbury faculty, in Havana on a hosted tour with the Jose Marti Cultural Institute, led by my friend Cookie Fischer were invited to the top of the Lincoln Hotel on the night the world was to end (remember the Mayan calendar prediction?) and we danced the night away to the live music of Septeto Nacional a 70 year old group. Son was my dance of choice there. For those of you who want to see Cuba before the transition is over, now is the time. You can travel legally from L.A. and Miami, Mexico or anywhere else in the world with a general license. Take advantage of it Now as it is going to get more crowded with tourists. For us film folk, we get a privileged perch, so plan on next December taking in a week of films plus another week or two to see a country whose land and people are unique in Latin America and the Caribbean.
- 3/15/2013
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
By Allen Gardner
Quadrophenia (Criterion) Franc Roddam’s 1979 film based on The Who’s classic rock opera tells the story of working class lad Jimmy (Phil Daniels) struggling to find his identity in a rapidly changing Britain, circa 1965. Jimmy is a “mod,” a youth movement dedicated to wearing snappy suits, driving Vespa motor scooters bedecked with side mirrors, popping amphetamines and obsessed with the new sound of bands like The Who and The Kinks. Their other pastime is engaging in bloody brawls with “rockers,” throwbacks to the 1950s, who listen to Elvis and Gene Vincent, wear leather biker gear, grease in their hair and drive massive motorcycles a la Marlon Brando in “The Wild One.” Often cited as a worthy successor to “Rebel Without a Cause” as the greatest angry youth picture ever made, it is that and more, including a first cousin to the “kitchen sink” dramas of scribes John Osborne,...
Quadrophenia (Criterion) Franc Roddam’s 1979 film based on The Who’s classic rock opera tells the story of working class lad Jimmy (Phil Daniels) struggling to find his identity in a rapidly changing Britain, circa 1965. Jimmy is a “mod,” a youth movement dedicated to wearing snappy suits, driving Vespa motor scooters bedecked with side mirrors, popping amphetamines and obsessed with the new sound of bands like The Who and The Kinks. Their other pastime is engaging in bloody brawls with “rockers,” throwbacks to the 1950s, who listen to Elvis and Gene Vincent, wear leather biker gear, grease in their hair and drive massive motorcycles a la Marlon Brando in “The Wild One.” Often cited as a worthy successor to “Rebel Without a Cause” as the greatest angry youth picture ever made, it is that and more, including a first cousin to the “kitchen sink” dramas of scribes John Osborne,...
- 9/4/2012
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
I sat down with actor Demian Bichir during the final months of 2008, when he was appearing in “The Waters of Babylon” at the Geffen Playhouse. Since then, Bichir has become a recognizable face north of the U.S.-Mexico border following his lauded turn in last year’s indie hit “A Better Life,” for which he was tapped with a Best Actor Oscar nomination yesterday.
Demian Bichir Drinks From The Waters Of Babylon, Fights A Revolution With Che And Takes A Walk In The Weeds
By Alex Simon
A native of Mexico City, actor Demian Bichir is currently batting a triple with two high-profile supporting roles on the big and small screen, as well as the male lead (co-starring with Shannon Cochran) in Robert Schenkkan’s play By the Waters of Babylon, which is currently onstage at The Geffen Playhouse. Prior to trotting the boards in Westwood, Demian wrapped Steven Soderbergh...
Demian Bichir Drinks From The Waters Of Babylon, Fights A Revolution With Che And Takes A Walk In The Weeds
By Alex Simon
A native of Mexico City, actor Demian Bichir is currently batting a triple with two high-profile supporting roles on the big and small screen, as well as the male lead (co-starring with Shannon Cochran) in Robert Schenkkan’s play By the Waters of Babylon, which is currently onstage at The Geffen Playhouse. Prior to trotting the boards in Westwood, Demian wrapped Steven Soderbergh...
- 1/26/2012
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
Alina Fernandez, the estranged daughter of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, wants the man behind the cat known as Puss in Boots, Antonio Banderas to play her father in the upcoming biopic Castro’s Daughter, to be directed by English filmmaker Michael Radford (Il Postino). The film is based on Fernández’s novel, ‘Castro’s Daughter, An Exile’s Memoir [...]
Continue reading Antonio Banderas to Play Fidel in Castro’S Daughter on FilmoFilia.
No related posts.
Continue reading Antonio Banderas to Play Fidel in Castro’S Daughter on FilmoFilia.
No related posts.
- 1/16/2012
- by Nick Martin
- Filmofilia
Antonio Banderas has entered talks to play Fidel Castro in Michael Radford’s upcoming drama "Castro’s Daughter" at Mankind Entertainment says Screen Daily.
The film tells the true life story of Alina Fernandez, the product of a love affair between Fidel and Cuban socialite Naty Revuelta.
Alina went on to reject her father’s regime and secretly fled Cuba in the early 1990's disguised as a Spanish tourist. The real Alina volunteered Banderas’ name as the ideal person to play the role.
The tone is said to be somewhat akin to "The King’s Speech" but from a daughter's perspective as she "overcomes the everlasting effects of the grips of her father through self liberation".
"Crash" co-writer Bobby Moresco and Pulitzer prize-winning author Nilo Cruz are penning the script. John Martinez and Joe Lamy are producing and shooting will take place in Puerto Rico.
The film tells the true life story of Alina Fernandez, the product of a love affair between Fidel and Cuban socialite Naty Revuelta.
Alina went on to reject her father’s regime and secretly fled Cuba in the early 1990's disguised as a Spanish tourist. The real Alina volunteered Banderas’ name as the ideal person to play the role.
The tone is said to be somewhat akin to "The King’s Speech" but from a daughter's perspective as she "overcomes the everlasting effects of the grips of her father through self liberation".
"Crash" co-writer Bobby Moresco and Pulitzer prize-winning author Nilo Cruz are penning the script. John Martinez and Joe Lamy are producing and shooting will take place in Puerto Rico.
- 1/14/2012
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
Naomi Campbell is not alone in putting the likes of Putin to the sword – though she has Chávez's scalp to her name as well
Naomi Campbell v Hugo Chávez
The model interviewed the Venezuelan president for February issue of GQ magazine in 2008. "I believe if he wasn't the president he'd be a very successful Latin singer," she deduced, before concluding: "For me his role will always be that of a rebel angel." Campbell was more political than the model's effort with Vladimir Putin, however, with Chávez revealing that he believed George Bush wanted to kill him.
Little Ant and Dec v Tony Blair
Blair agreed to be quizzed by the cherubic TV stars in 2005. The then prime minister admitted that deputy John Prescott had a grumpy face before revealing a fondness for chips. Blair was to call on his experience of tough questioning when he appeared before the Chilcot inquiry five years later.
Naomi Campbell v Hugo Chávez
The model interviewed the Venezuelan president for February issue of GQ magazine in 2008. "I believe if he wasn't the president he'd be a very successful Latin singer," she deduced, before concluding: "For me his role will always be that of a rebel angel." Campbell was more political than the model's effort with Vladimir Putin, however, with Chávez revealing that he believed George Bush wanted to kill him.
Little Ant and Dec v Tony Blair
Blair agreed to be quizzed by the cherubic TV stars in 2005. The then prime minister admitted that deputy John Prescott had a grumpy face before revealing a fondness for chips. Blair was to call on his experience of tough questioning when he appeared before the Chilcot inquiry five years later.
- 2/1/2011
- by Adam Gabbatt
- The Guardian - Film News
Sean Penn likes extremes ... he got a taste of Las Vegas Friday and Saturday and then took a flight to Cuba. The question -- is Sean gonna light one up with Fidel Castro? We got these pictures of Sean and company boarding a private jet from Sin City bound for Havana yesterday.We've learned Sean is going to the land of Fidel as a journalist, writing a story for Vanity Fair about how the Obama administration has affected Cuba.
- 10/25/2009
- TMZ
DVD Playhouse—March 2009
By
Allen Gardner
Let The Right One In (Magnolia) An awkward 12 year-old boy, ignored by his mother and the target of bullies, finds himself drawn to his new neighbor: a girl his own age who only appears at night, and seems herself to be as lonely an outcast as he. Haunting film from Sweden is best described as The 400 Blows meets Nosferatu, and contains some of the most haunting imagery of any film in recent memory. Truly a unique and memorable work. Bonuses: Deleted scenes; Featurette; Photo and poster gallery. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
Paramount Centennial Collection Paramount offers two more classic titles, restored, remastered and loaded with extras. Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch A Thief stars Cary Grant as a retired jewel thief trying to enjoy his sunset years on the French Riviera with a minimum of drama, until he catches the eye of a high-maintenance heiress (Grace Kelly,...
By
Allen Gardner
Let The Right One In (Magnolia) An awkward 12 year-old boy, ignored by his mother and the target of bullies, finds himself drawn to his new neighbor: a girl his own age who only appears at night, and seems herself to be as lonely an outcast as he. Haunting film from Sweden is best described as The 400 Blows meets Nosferatu, and contains some of the most haunting imagery of any film in recent memory. Truly a unique and memorable work. Bonuses: Deleted scenes; Featurette; Photo and poster gallery. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.
Paramount Centennial Collection Paramount offers two more classic titles, restored, remastered and loaded with extras. Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch A Thief stars Cary Grant as a retired jewel thief trying to enjoy his sunset years on the French Riviera with a minimum of drama, until he catches the eye of a high-maintenance heiress (Grace Kelly,...
- 3/11/2009
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
For Demián Bichir, acting is a family business: His parents and his two brothers are also performers. In fact, one year the MTV Mexican Movie Awards created a special category -- Mejor Bichir en una Película ("best Bichir in a movie") -- because of the proliferation of films starring the Bichir brothers. Though Demián Bichir made his TV debut at age 14 in the telenovela Rina and has been working regularly for the last three decades, he is relatively unknown in the United States. That's likely to change with his bold, commanding performance as Fidel Castro in Steven Soderbergh's epic movie Che, opening Jan. 24. Being released as two films -- The Argentine and The Guerrilla -- the more-than-four-hour saga details the life of Che Guevara (Benicio Del Toro). Bichir also finished a six-week run in December of his first American play, By the Waters of Babylon, at Los Angeles' Geffen Playhouse.
- 1/14/2009
- by Jenelle Riley
- backstage.com
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