Bound for the Kennedy Center: One Cinema, One Country

A retrospective of Cuban cinema from the last half century will be offered as part of the programme of the Art of Cuba Festival with venue at the Kennedy Center of Washington.

It’s only six movies, but somehow they summarize almost six decades of cinema in Revolution.

At the Family Theater in the Kennedy Center, located in the U.S. capital will take place a retrospective of Cuban cinema, with films that have rendered prestige to Cuba worldwide.

On Saturday May 12th will be run probably the most famous of Cuban films of all the times: Memories of Underdevelopment, directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea in year 1968.

This film joins many of the lists of best Latin Americans film creations.

Not by accident: its formal and conceptual values distinguished it since its premiere, since it was run in international theaters.

It was (It’s) an intimate chronicle of the excited first years of the Revolution that presents contradictions and doesn’t avoid common places.

Portrait Of Teresa from Pastor Vega will also be included, filmed in 1979.

It was an overwhelming assertion in a hot debate around those years: women’s full emancipation.

The movie became public phenomenon; the discussions it generates reached several places of the Cuban society.

The actress in the leading role of the film, Daisy Granados, gave a memorable performance.

The first day will close with Lucía, another classic, shot in 1968 by Humberto Solás.

Three episodes of our history are shown with the mastery singularity and aesthetic finesse of Solás.

The main topic is women, exalted as main character of our revolution. They are, in definitive, three stories of three women who became symbols.

On Sunday May 13th other more recent films will be run. Some of them have won awards in the New Latin American Film Festival, an appointment that this year celebrates its 40th anniversary.

Strawberry and Chocolate, of Tomás Guitérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío, shook prejudices in the early 90’s.

It was a valiant and necessary movie, a landmark in the struggle for the complete acceptance of gays in society.

It is one of the most acclaimed works of Cuban cinema at an international level.

Suite Havana, of Fernando Pérez, is a beautiful, lyrical and deep metaphor on the daily life of a country and its people.

Few times a city has been depicted with such poetry and commitment, filled of suggesting and painful contrasts.

Lastly, Conducta, directed by Ernesto Daranas, another story of our daily life; straightforward, without euphemisms that speaks of the sacrifice of a teacher in difficult times.

A song to love, to friendship, to the usefulness of virtue.

There are missing, of course, other important films in this retrospective; but the North American public will have within their reach a fair and very representative selection. Ideal to approach a country and its circumstances.

Cubasi Translation Staff / Amilkal Labañino Valdés