Café Amargo New Film to Be Premiered Soon in Cinemas

In a press conference that took place at Fresa y Chocolate cultural center, the director of Café amargo declared the idea was born in 1998 when he made the documentary Cuatro hermanas, which is based in the true story of four women living in the most remote area of Sierra Maestra in an old people’s home.

“It is a bitter story; living in Sierra Maestra mountainous region costs very much, for the hard conditions of the place itself, and mostly for women, who have to do extra work”, he added and then said the work tells the story of these four sisters and their loneliness facing the society’s lack of understanding and decided to live outside the time.

He said he was born in Sierra Maestra too; “us, the people from there, speak little and maybe that’s why we are so concrete when we do it; people live there very simply and communication is established with the sounds of nature, the rivers, the animals, the wind”, and these are the sounds of the film.

Photography, in charge of Jose Manuel Riera, takes great delight in the beautiful nature and its chromatic fullness. He also manages a praiseworthy work with the lights and shadows inside the sisters’ home and he puts a lot of effort to reflect the image of the distressing loneliness and the physical decadence in the second part of the story, where according to Riera himself, he tried to reproduce the atmospheres in the paintings of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Milano, Italy 1571- Porto Ercole, Italy1610).

The cast includes actresses—all from the theatre—from Television Serrana station during the first part of the film that is set in 1958. The  ones that will perform the roles of the four sisters were later selected from this group: Yudexi de la Torre, Yunia Jerez, Venecia Lanz and Janet Batista.

These actresses—originally from Bayamo and not from rural areas—lived for a month with the country men in the area of Sierra Maestra where the film was shot. The experience included that during this time they learned to do some usual chores like pile up coffee, to cook with coal, among others.

The second part of the story included more consecrated actresses like Coralia Veloz, Adela Legrá and Oneida Hernández.

During the press conference was talked about the importance of the film because it rescues the Cuban countryside as main theme in cinema, with its own problems in two different time period 40 years apart, and a plot where the protagonists have stopped in time as a way to protect themselves from the outside world that has moved on along the years.

The filmmaker highlighted in Café amargo the performances, in the first place, photography, art direction in charge of Vivian del Valle, the script by Arturo Arango and Xenia Rivery, and music directed by maestro Juan Piñera.

Translation: Cubarte