By Alejandra Garcia on December 9, 2021, from Havana
The Yara Theater, photo: Bill Hackwell
December is the month of cinema for Havana residents. Everyone knows that during the first week of the last month of the year, the doors of movie theaters open 24 hours a day to screen first runs of films, documentaries, and audiovisuals of all kinds from Cuba and Latin America. More than a festival, it is a huge party.
However, the Havana New Latin American Film Festival was interrupted last year. COVID-19 forced authorities and organizers to cancel the festival due to the spike in contagions on the island, especially in the capital.
Twelve months later and with more than 70 percent of the Cuban population fully immunized -thanks to the nationally produced vaccines-, the lines of the Charles Chaplin, Cine 23 and 12, Yara, Riviera, Rampa, and Acapulco movie theaters have spectators again. Meanwhile, directors, actors, and screenwriters are receiving applause once again after each staging.
Film presentations, question-and-answer sessions, press conferences, master classes, exhibitions, book and magazine presentations are also back, among other activities.
The obstacles for this new edition have been great. The airlines are not operating at their full capacity, which made many guests’ arrival more complex… However, many foreign jurors and film directors will accompany their movie presentations in theaters and offer press conferences as well.
The festival joined a series of measures by Cuban authorities to bring the country back up to normal little by little. Those decisions included border reopening and the return of millions of children to the classrooms.
Since December 3rd, Havana’s nightlife is once again filled with young people lining up to buy tickets at the doors of movie theaters, after the nearly one-year-long mandatory lockdown, where people had two basic objectives for going out on the streets: search for food and medicines.
This does not mean that the appropriate health measures will not be taken, especially after Cuba detected its first case of the new Omicron variant, which scientists are still studying to determine its real threat.
“Each cinema will follow the health measures proposed by the authorities. Spectators should sit with a seat in between,” the event’s organizers clarified on the festival’s official website.
“The health emergency has not passed. However, it fills us with enthusiasm to return to live the most important cinematographic event that takes place on the island every year,” they added.
This year, the event will hold pieces from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Haiti, Venezuela, Colombia, and other Latin American nations.
This “Second Dose” -the festival’s title as a play on words with the island’s vaccination process-, proposes diversity in terms of film plots and genres, and the public will be able to enjoy them until December 12.
“Thanks to the selection of pieces, movie theaters will once again become spaces for the promotion of the region’s cinephile culture, another opportunity for the public’s delight in front of the big screen,” the event’s president Ivan Giroud said.
Neither Cuba nor the Latin American filmmakers wanted to give up this 42nd edition of the festival. They know the island is a safe destination. That’s why the curtain went up, the seats were dusted off, and the lights were turned on. There is an international awareness for the film festival and it has gained incalculable respect as the most important of its kind in the Americas.
“The event gives back to Havana its most cinematographic face to disseminate realities, perspectives, and challenges of the continent. This festival is and will always be the record of our memory,” Giroud concluded.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano