• Submitted by: admin
• Arts and Culture
• Cinema
• 10 / 15 / 2006

By Augusto Rojos

Going through different roads and with different artistic and thematic treatments, experienced filmmakers and new talents are trying to renew the national cinematography after the impact of the uncertain decade of the 90s that affected every field of the country.

The Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (Cuban Institute of Arts and Cinematographic Industry) (ICAIC, after its initials in Spanish) has premiered, with different supports including the co-productions, several films in the last month and has now about ten different movies in different stages of production.

"El Benny", made by Jorge Luis Sanchez has been seen by over 450 thousand people all along the country, "Páginas del diario de Mauricio", by Manuel Pérez produced a deep reflection on the ethics and the human relations in the Cuban society in the 90s.

As one of those new movies, the film "Mañana" is creating great expectations, as other cinematographic works currently in production that people are already talking about them and some details, good decisions and predictions are emerging. That is inevitable.

The Iskánder movie will be presented by ICAIC in the next weeks and has been registered as a competition movie in the next Festival of the New Latin American Cinema of Havana that will take place between the next 5 and 15 of December.

What expectations do this film creates?

The first people who have had the fortune of seen it, even without including the full sound to the synchronization of the images, have been impressed.

Firstly is its making, if you want, different to the ways the Cuban movies have been produced in the last years. It is natural that every renovating work of art also searches for new formulas.

Perhaps it is the way of doing things in our age, when the new technologies are providing a more direct access to the audiovisual productions. It means, the way of producing of the years 2000 in Cuba and all around the world. But it is also a peculiar vision of our reality.

Perhaps it is, due to same state above, of a language phenomenon, a language with an unquestionable fluency and inventiveness. The eyes are reflecting the changing reality, while the reality is modifying the perception of the things and the events.

Perhaps it is due to the way of thinking these days. We are talking about rhythm, consonance, symmetry, focus, new artistic structuring of the reality.

Anyway, with this movie we can see a "refreshment" of the language of the Cuban cinema, a kind of breaking up with the way of thinking. At the same time, we can observe two phenomena:

First it is the way of approaching the reality. It is a critical realism, but not direct, or hypercritical, or demagogic, or affected or full of subterfuge. The approach to the reality is implicit in attitudes, scenes with some confidence, nakedness, and transparency. It is the realistic vision of the people of today in Cuba, of its problems and attitudes; their searches, defects, good and bad decisions.

Second it is the approach to the human responsibility. The approach to the dangers of the vices, moral weaknesses, tolerances and of the attempts of living at the margin and avoid the development of the Cuban society today.

The movie hits, without any scheme or any discursive language, attitudes that exists in the country and that manage to create a determinate alternative climate, harmful, in minority social groups, but contagious, living at the parallel to the great efforts in the education, job and professional development that is displaying the nation besides the daily difficulties and the inclemency of the domestic life.

We are not going to tell the movie, but it is about a critical trip to the interior of a Cuban family of today that lives with some economic comfort. The morbid points are revealed, as well as the conflicts of the couples, the family violence, the human miseries, the tolerances, the excesses and the wish of living "above the reality" of todays Cuba.

The film has events of great impact, which probably occurred by accident, but that test the moral depth and the responsibilities of several people. What should we do in front of an unexpected, bad event that can suddenly and drastically change our lives? Where is the moral responsibility in front of these circumstances?

Now, what are the most attractive aspects of the film?

One is the rhythm that is an unmistakable part of the language. It is a growing rhythm that has great expectation and at the same time full of nuances and tensions. In summary, something new. Something it is going to happened very soon, but you dont know what while the story of the film is going through twists that create a climate of interest. What is going to happen, starts to mix, to loudly anticipate, to move back, to play with temporary and space shots. The events are coming through different roads, shots, scenes, characters and are gathering as a puzzle at the end of the movie, when the outcome it is reached that will highly move the audiences.

Another achievement is the atmosphere, off course linked to the rhythm. It is a todays atmosphere, real, living, plain. The Cuban public will recognize their daily environment, the sounds, the colors, and the current sign language. Although there might be economic differences in the life of a really not common family, some similarities, contradictions, differences are displayed as well as common points with the rest of the society.

It is, without any doubt, a reflective movie that is at the same time suggestive and calm. The movie avoids the caricatures, the critical disproportions, the rhetoric speeches and the complexities of the language. It is a direct movie without any temporal gap and a movie that does not allow the interest to fall at any time. The film even, leaves a pleasant taste, despite its strong outcome.

Iskánder, poet, TV director and now cinema director, has been the scriptwriter and the director and shot this movie in High Digital Video Definition, to later, inflate to celluloid. His sister, Adriana Moya, is the producer. The father, Eduardo, who is not part of the movie, is one of the best directors of the Cuban TV of the last 50 years. It is about a family of cinema and TV producers.

The photography is by Angel Alderete, the edition by Carlos Alberto Carnero and by the same director. The sound has been in charge of Esteban Vázquez. A young actor is outstanding in the movie. It is Rafael Ernesto Hernández, a student of performances, who is in the staring role with Violeta Rodríguez, Hugo Reyes, Dayana Molina, Yurelis González, Amanda Sánchez, David González, Lieter Ledesma, Leonardo Benítez and many others. In the film also stars, the always outstanding, Enrique Molina and the experienced Adria Santana, Mario Balmaseda, Coralita Veloz, Dianelis Brito and Serafín García.

Everything makes people to think that Mañana, produced with a very low budget, but great originality in the production and with the support of several Cuban artists like Silvio Rodríguez, Juan Formell, Ernesto Rancaño, Carlos Guzmán and Kcho ,as well as of the own stars of the movie and the decisive support of ICAIC, the state organization of the national cinematography, will insert itself, with much more than luck, in the context of the recuperation and growth that the Cuban cinema is living nowadays.

Source: CubaNow