International Festival of Latin American Cinema

The 21st International Festival of Latin American Cinema was held in Havana, Cuba last December. Set against the backdrop of the luxurious Hotel Nacional, the Festival’s home base, attendees chatted and drank mojitos, just happy to be in this cultured yet troubled city.

Politics are always very close to the surface in Cuba, and this year the local press buzzed with news of the anti-WTO protests in Seattle and of the refusal of Miami Cubans to return Elian Gonzalez to his father. The latter event prompted protests during the Festival in front of the Hotel Nacional.

Over 10 days, more than 250 films were screened, viewed by people from over 50 countries. The Festival was not just made up of narrative features, but also included short film and video, animation and documentaries. Obviously, the emphasis was on Latin American films, notably from Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Cuba itself. For the Spanish speaker it is the premier Latin American film festival, a great and rare opportunity to see films that might never play in the U.S. In the retrospective category, the spotlights were on Hector Babenco, Luis Buñuel and Juan Padrón, a Cuban animator who has been making films since the early ’70s. There were also homages to Claude Chabrol, Norman Jewison (his latest, The Hurricane, screened), and Mario Monicelli.

The celebrity presence was high, considering the difficulties for Americans traveling to Cuba. Danny Glover showed up to promote Beloved (director Jonathan Demme was also in attendance). The historical context of visits by Mariel Hemingway and Rory Kennedy (who arrived with her mother Ethel) was not lost on festivalgoers, but neither appeared tied up by her fathers’s legacy to this storied island, and both fell under the spell of Havana.

Cuba has its own rhythms – the apparent lack of organization and punctuality within the Festival became known affectionately as "Cuba time." Each morning a paper was available that listed that day’s and the next’s schedule of screenings. One day’s notice made it difficult to plan anything in advance, and unfortunately, for English speakers, most films were shown only in Spanish or with Spanish subtitles. When they did have English subtitles, it was not noted in the schedule, making attending films a somewhat dicey affair. Thanks to the Sundance Institute’s nine-year collaboration with the Festival, there was a section called "North American Independent Films," which included Todd Haynes’s Velvet Goldmine, Darren Aronofsky’s ¼, Rory Kennedy’s American Hollow, Todd Solondz’s Happiness, Hal Hartley’s Henry Fool, Marc Levin’s Slam, and Tony Bui’s Three Seasons. Each was well received (with the exception of American Hollow, which was never received at all – a print, that is).

The closing night ceremony began with the awards presentation. The Argentines came out ahead, winning first prize for Garage Olimpo, third for Yepeto (which also walked away with best screenplay), special jury prize and best actor for Pablo Echarri in Sólo Gente, and best documentary prize for Borges, Los Libros y Las Noches.

After the awards were all given out, the struggle of trying to translate the Spanish-only presentation paid off: the Buena Vista Social Club slowly made their way onstage to play for an ecstatic home crowd of 5,000 in the Karl Marx Theater, which by most accounts will probably be the last show comprising the entire group. Their emotional performance was followed by a screening of Wim Wenders’s documentary of the group, which closed the Festival. It was a one-of-a-kind experience and an excellent send-off to a jam-packed ten days.

This year’s Festival was concurrent with the first direct airline flight from New York City to Cuba in 40 years, but its once-a-week departure and customs delays didn’t make traveling any easier. A word of advice to anyone planning a trip to Cuba: make sure you are traveling legally. – Laura Kern

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