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110 YEARS OF FILM IN CUBA
An adventure with no going back
BY ADRIANA VALDES ROBREÑO – journalism student –
IT
was just a little more than a year after “the
seventh art” had conquered Paris, thanks to the
ingenious invention of the Lumière brothers, that
the first film exhibition took place in Cuba.
The
19th century was coming to a close, and the Cuban
people were immersed in the Wars of Independence.
Havana, a city located in a geographically favorable
enclave, continued to be a point of encounter for
the economic, scientific and cultural trends of the
times.
On
Friday, January 15, 1897, Frenchman Gabriel Veyre,
the representative of the Lumière House of Paris,
arrived in Cuba from Mexico, where he had made a
film presentation to more than 1,500 people and did
some filming of his own.
His
first exhibitions in the Cuban capital were
presented at No. 126 Prado Street, between San
Rafael and San José, in a long, narrow auditorium
that housed the former Tacón Theater, now called
Gran
Teatro de La Habana.
That
day, January 23, 1897, the program projected —
solely for a group of journalists from the largest
newspapers — included A Cuirassier Squadron on
Parade, Tempest at Sea, Train Arriving
in a Station, Sunset in Madrid and
Visit to Paris by Russian Czar Nicolas Romanoff.
The
next day, Cuba had an unforgettable experience. Film
exhibitions for the public began. The first shows
began at 6:30 p.m. and the last at 11:30 p.m.
Despite the uncomfortable folding chairs rented for
the occasion, that day viewers enjoyed films from
the Lumière collection: The Card Players,
Watering the Gardener, The Spanish Artillery
in Combat, The Comic Hat and Parade of
a Moorish Cavalry.
The
ticket price to witness this technical novelty was
50 centavos for adults and 20 centavos for children
and soldiers.
It
was Veyre who, 15 days later, on February 7, 1897,
shot the first film footage in Cuba. A Mock Fire
was the title of the island’s first short film,
which starred members of the Business Owners
Firefighters Station in Havana.
Fans
of this novelty among the public grew increasingly
demanding, and Veyre was joined by Cuban
competitors. During the first era of film on the
island, they included José Casasús, actor and
director; Enrique Díaz Quesada, a precursor and
lover of the seventh art; and producers Pablo Santos
and Jesús Artigas, as well as Ramón Peón, actor,
scriptwriter, director and producer. All of them
made silent films until the 1930s.
During that period, there were several movie
theaters dedicated to this marvelous invention: the
Panorama Soler, the Salón de Variedades o Ilusiones
Opticas (The Varieties and Optical Illusions
Theater), Paseo del Prado # 118, the Panorama,
Vitascopio de Edison (in the famous Acera del Louvre).
Then
the “talking” movies arrived. Their founders were
Max Tosquella, Ernesto Caparrós and Manolo Alonso.
With
the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, on January 1,
1959, and the creation of the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC),
on March 24 of that same year, the so-called New
Cuban Cinema movement began, very much marked by
identity and diversity.
The
critics refer to the first 10 years of that
institution as the Golden Decade of Cuban film.
During that time, films made included Memories of
Underdevelopment (1968), byTomás Gutiérrez Alea
and Lucía (1967), by Humberto Solás,
both considered to be among the 10 best films of the
past 100 years, according to a survey by the Cuban
Association of Film Press.
One
of the strongest currents in Cuban film is
documentary-making, which has had its maximum
exponent in Santiago Alvarez. There has been no
shortage of animated film, and one success in that
sense has been the creation of the children’s
cartoon hero character, Elpidio Valdés.
It
is also essential to mention the Noticiero ICAIC
Latinoamericano (ICAIC Latin American News
Report), directed first by Alfredo Guevara and later
by Santiago Alvarez, Cuba’s greatest
documentary-maker.
Another notable event in Cuban filmmaking is the
International Festival of New Latin American Cinema,
held in Havana every year, and which celebrated its
18th edition in 2006.
This
past year was a very active one for Cuban
filmmakers. Four feature films were made, received
very well by the public and critics: Páginas del
Diario de Mauricio, La Pared, El Benny
y La Edad de la Peseta.
Documentaries projected included El Proceso
and Querido Papá (both dedicated to
the Cuban Five, imprisoned in the United States) and
San Ernesto nace en La Higuera. In the
animated category, a DVD was produced with 22
children’s music videos.
Today, 110 years after the arrival in our country of
the magic of the Lumière brothers, the seventh art
is still capturing the attention of the Cuban
people. It arrived in 1897 to bring dreams to those
of us who live on this island, and since that day,
an adventure began in Cuba with no going back.
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