Cuban documentary competes in 23 Malaga Festival

The documentary 'Portrait of an Artist Always an Adolescent' (A History of Cinema in Cuba), competes in the 23rd edition of the Malaga Film Festival, in Spain, reported today the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (Icaic ).

The work, directed by Manuel Herrera, is part of the official section of Documentary Feature Films.

The 23 Malaga Festival takes place from August 21 to 30 with almost twenty national and Latin American films in competition, and the exhibition of more than 100 audiovisual products, with multiple security measures to protect viewers from Covid-19.

Portrait of an artist always an adolescent was shown in this capital, in December 2019, during the 41st Festival of New Latin American Cinema to pay tribute to Icaic, in its 60 years of foundation.

The piece articulates the history of the renowned Cuban filmmaker Julio García Espinosa, along with the emergence and development of the new national cinematography together with Icaic.

García Espinosa, considered more than a filmmaker due to his intense work in the construction of the cultural policy of Cuban cinema, constitutes the common thread of Herrera's audiovisual, who chose to emulate in this material the peculiar and irreverent humor that runs through much of the film, own filmography of its protagonist.

Reflecting on the film, Michel Chanan, a British documentary maker, pointed out that through the testimony of more than two dozen colleagues, the work represents a chronicle of the institution and a generation that shares its narrative.

The final product details the political implications of Julio's mischief and its significance beyond criticizing the conventional formulas of commercial cinema. There are very few biographies that present the political context of their subject as lucidly as in this audiovisual, highlighted the creator from the United Kingdom.

According to the critic Manuel Pérez, this work by Herrera risks opinions, analysis and presentation of events and interventions chosen by García Espinosa, with a story that enriches and illuminates what is presented.

For his part, Carlos Galiano pointed out that this multiple portrait penetrates for the first time in areas of the trajectory of its protagonist, Cuban cinema and crucial political conjunctures they had to face, until now not revisited, at least with due objectivity and lucidity.

Portrait of an artist who is always a teenager becomes not only the documentary that Julio deserved, but also one that Icaic needed, and an example of the problematizing and anti-complacent approach that Cuban culture demands, Galiano highlighted.

Likewise, the critic said this work connects with what is done internationally in the genre, from a more innovative point of view in terms of language than contemporary fiction cinema.