EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 10 December 2022 — The Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez was awarded, this Friday, with the Choir of Honor at the awards gala of the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana.
The gala was the culmination of the festival, which since December 1 has screened hundreds of films, and the singer-songwriter caused the biggest wave of applause of the night when he went up to collect the award and address a few words to the public.
“The revolution is lucidity and not complacency,” said the musician, who wished that Cuban cultural institutions “be increasingly wise and inclusive” to bring the country closer to “the fullness that we usually dream of.”
Rodríguez recalled in a brief address — and quoted one by one — all the members, “present and absent,”,of the nueva trova, the musical movement he founded 50 years ago, among others, together with the singer-songwriter Pablo Milanés, recently deceased.
For his part, Milanés received the greatest applause at the opening gala of the Havana film festival, when a heartfelt tribute was paid to him by the organization shared by the attendees, mainly from the world of the arts.
The Bolivian film El gran movimiento monopolized the main awards of the night, including Best Fiction Feature Film and Best Director, which went to its director Kiro Ruso.
Among the recognitions, the awarding of the new Arrecife prize to the Colombian and French production film Un varón, by director Fabián Hernández, was also highlighted, as the jury considered that it was the festival’s work that best reflects the reality of the LGBTIQ+ community.
The film Argentina 1985, which was screened at the festival’s opening gala, won Best Art Direction, Best Screenplay and Best Male Performance, as well as the Signis, awarded by the Catholic World Communication Association.
Several first works were also awarded, including the Chilean-Argentine 1976, by Manuela Martelli, and Amparo, by director Simón Mesa Soto, a production from Colombia, Sweden, Germany and Qatar.
The 43rd edition of the festival, the first edition in a traditional format after two years of the pandemic, included 185 works in the official selection, including fiction short films, debut films, documentaries and animated works.
This year a total of 15 works competed for the Best Feature Film Award and as many for First Works, and there were 17 documentaries, 15 fiction short films, ten documentaries in short film format, 29 animated films, 32 unpublished scripts and 30 posters. The most represented countries among the selected films were Argentina, Mexico and Brazil, although the organizers highlighted the presence of films from Bolivia and Costa Rica. Beyond the American continent, Spain, France and Portugal were also present.
The festival also included a series of parallel events, among which the tribute to Cuban filmmaker Nicolás Guillén Landrián (1938-2003) stood out, which included the projection of some of his restored works and a documentary about his life, by Ernesto Daranas.
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