Graduate students in the Fall 2022 seminar “Contemporary Latin American Cinema: History, Theory, and Practice” joined Professor Bernadette Wegenstein and Professor Marina Bedran in attending the 43rd International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, held in Havana, Cuba from December 1 to 11, 2022.
Founded in 1979 by Alfredo Guevara and Gabriel García Márquez, the Havana International Film Festival seeks to foster the most innovative developments in new Latin American cinema, highlighting films that emphasize Latin American and Caribbean identity while also celebrating other works of contemporary world cinema. Under the slogan “Cine a lo grande,” the 2022 festival encouraged audiences to step away from their computers, put down their smart phones, and experience cinema on the big screen at four of Havana’s most important movie theaters: Yara, 23 and 12, Acapulco, and Chaplin.
The 2022 competition featured 103 films comprising fiction features, documentary features, short/medium-length films (fiction and documentary), animation, and opera prima (first fiction features) selected from more than 2000 entries, with additional awards given for unpublished scripts, posters, and post-production. In addition to the CORAL awards given to winners in the above categories, this year also saw the introduction of a new Diversity Award given to the best Latin American film on a queer subject.
2022 marks the fourth year of CAMS participation in the Havana International Film Festival and its first since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Hear from participants:
This is the fourth time I have taken graduate students in CAMS to the International Film Festival in Havana. Every time the festival has been inspiring and a glimpse into the latest trends in Latin American Cinema. But this year, for the first time, we were also also able to visit the Fundación del Nuevo Cine Latino Americano, which was founded by Colombian journalist and writer Gabriel García Márquez, Cuban filmmakers and film theorists Julio García Espinosa and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Argentine poet and filmmaker Fernando Birri, and Brazilian filmmakers Orlando Senna and Sergio Muniz (among others). We also visited the prestigious film school Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión located outside of la Havana in San Antonio de los Baños.
Bernadette Wegenstein (Professor of Media Studies and Documentary Filmmaker, Director of CAMS)
One of the highlights of the 43rd edition of the Havana’s film festival was the screening of Nicolás Guillén Landrián’s short films, including the famous Coffea Arábiga (1968), which went for years without a public screening in Cuba. While his uncle Nicolás Guillén was Cuba’s national poet and the voice of the Revolution, Nicolasito’s experimental films, made under the auspices of the ICAIC, sent him to prison, mental hospitals, and eventually into exile. After a period of ostracism, his films have recently received scholarly attention and began circulating on the internet. The original copies were restored and projected onto the big screen (this year’s motto was “cine a lo grande”) in movie theaters packed with Cubans and filmgoers from all over the world. Seeing these films now, when the regime is undergoing vocal critique from young artists, and an economic crisis fueled by U.S. sanctions prompted the biggest migration since the 1959 Revolution, was very special, and it helped us make sense of Cuba’s fascinating history and complicated politics.
Marina Bedran (Assistant Professor of Lusophone Literatures and Cultures, Modern Languages and Literatures)
Attending the Havana Film Festival has been a truly transformative experience. The opportunity to watch some of the newest and most innovative films made in Latin America and getting first-hand contact with their filmmakers was powerfully inspiring. The trip greatly expanded my understanding of several core aspects of my PhD research, especially those related to the intersections of philosophy and art in contemporary Latin American narratives of identity and resistance. The vibrant city life of La Havana was the perfect stage for this formative experience.
Alfredo Walls (Spanish/Modern Languages and Literatures)
Our 2022 trip to La Havana Film Festival definitely exceeded all of my expectations. We were able to watch more than one film per day, and going back and forth between the venues was an adventure by itself. I was particularly excited about the screenings of Nicolás Guillén Landrián’s short films, for I had only seen them on a small screen and had loved so much. I was able to witness first hand how beloved he actually was, and his legacy on Cuban film can be felt today, more than 20 years after his death.
Verónica Ríos Saavedra (Spanish/Modern Languages and Literatures)
This trip to the 43rd Havana Film Festival was an incredible experience for me. I not only learned so much talking with filmmakers and critics, but I also had the opportunity to meet Vladimir Cruz, one of my favorite actors from Cuban cinema and I was able to discuss my opinions about the documentary that he presented at the festival with him.
Alicia Piñar Diaz (Spanish/Modern Languages and Literatures)
My experience at the Havana Film Festival was vitally enriching. Despite being a neophyte in film studies, this festival was the perfect closure for the class in Contemporary Cinema in Latin America (Profs. Bernadette Wegenstein and Marina Bedran). As a Colombian doctoral student, it was very important for me to share with my professors and classmates the big screen projection of Camilo Torres, el amor eficaz, the latest documentary by Marta Rodríguez and Fernando Restrepo. This documentary and subsequent conversations have pushed me to become even more interested in the cinematographic language’s fascinating history and potential for Colombian and Latin American Studies.
Fernando López Vega (Anthropology)
