Festival News
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23/06/2010
Palmarés de Premiados de la Cuarta Edición del Festival -
16/06/2010
Clausuramos el Festival con un clásico del cine mudo indio. El maestro Joan Pineda interpretará al piano y en directo la banda sonora -
16/06/2010
The Granada Film Festival Cines del Sur will have tomorrow Panahi's statements after being liberated -
15/06/2010
Mañana te esperamos en el Seminario 'Cines del Norte, Cines del Sur'
Retrospectives
Outsiders in Paradise. The Cuban Revolution by Foreigner Cinema Directors (1959-1969)
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Che! (Che!)
Richard Fleischer
A reconstruction of the relationship between Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, this film by Richard Fleischer has Omar Sharif in the starring role. Starting with when the two leaders met and up through their differences of opinion and Guevara’s departure from the island, Che! is a revisionist story told from the North American perspective, contextualized by the years following the presidency of John F. Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs incident.
USA 1969. 16 mm. Color. 96’
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Crónica cubana (Crónica cubana)
Ugo Ulive
Crónica cubana is an interrogation of the changes wrought by the construction of the new Cuban society on a group of different people after the triumph of the revolution, transformations that will determine their future. Each of them will have to face untenable situations that will force them to define themselves around the meaning that the new regime has given their lives.
CUBA 1963. 35mm. B&W 123’
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Cuba 58 (Cuba 58)
José Miguel García Ascot
Cuba 58 is a feature-length film structured into three episodes: ‘A day on the Job, ‘The Couple’ and ‘New Year’. Of these three parts, Cines del Sur has rescued the first two for its retrospective.
In ‘A Day on the Job’, a police corporal follows his beat, with the usual day-to-day incidents of his job, until he is called to put down a student demonstration. Meanwhile, ‘The Couple’ presents the story of an underground fighter who is being pursued. During his flight, he develops a sentimental relationship with a young girl who serves as his liaison when he has to climb the mountains.CUBA 1962 35mm. B&N. 49’
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Cuba, pueblo armado (Cuba, pueblo armado)
Joris Ivens
An Armed Nation is a documentary about the members of the Revolutionary Militias scattered around different areas in the country, although it specifically focuses on part of a confrontation with the insurgents in the mountains. Filmed by the renowned Dutch documentary maker Joris Ivens, the film is the fruit of the filmmaker’s trips to the island to train young Cubans at the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC).
CUBA /FRANCE 1961. 35 mm. B&W. 43’
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Cuban Rebel Girls (Cuban Rebel Girls)
Barry Mahon
The last feature film that Errol Flynn would star in before his death, in Cuban Rebel Girls the actor plays an American news correspondent who helps Castro defeat the Batista regime.
To do so, he joins a group opposed to the dictatorship and that engages in various guerrilla actions. Meanwhile, the story follows two rebel women: one of them, Beverly Woods, turns out to be much more interested in finding her boyfriend than in ousting Batista.USA 1959. DVD. B/N_B&W. 68’
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Cuban Story (The Truth about Fidel Castro Revolution)
Victor Pahlen
No translation available
USA 1959. DVD. B&W. 50’
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El otro Cristóbal (El otro Cristóbal)
Armand Gatti
Using satire, encoded in symbolism and surrealism, the French director Armand Gatti tells the story of an imaginary country in Latin America governed by Admiral Anastasio.
In this setting, Cristóbal, a foreign sailor, and Julio Bobadilla, a black peasant convinced of the importance of the organ music from Manzanillo to stimulate the revolution, become the leaders of a social movement that plans to overthrow the tyrant to the rhythm of conga.FRANCE / CUBA 1963. 35 mm. B&N. 115’
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Ella (Ella)
Theodor Christensen
This work by the Danish documentary maker Theodor Christensen shows the different aspects of life for women in contemporary Cuba, as well as their incorporation into militias after the Cuban Revolution.
CUBA 1964. 35 mm. B&W. 34’
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Fidel! (Fidel!)
Saul Landau
A personal portrait of a political phenomenon and a look at developments in Cuba since the revolution just ten years earlier, Fidel! gives a rare glimpse into the everyday life of the Cuban people and their leader. Whether listening to complaints at a collective farm, playing baseball with the locals or discussing Marxist revolutionary theory, Castro’s charisma is present in every frame and, like him or not, this film lends insight as to why so many call him “The Giant.”
USA 1969. DVD. Color. 95’
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Gente en la playa (Gente en la playa)
Néstor Almendros
Influenced by the Free Cinema aesthetic, the short piece Gente en la playa presents the scene on the Cuban coasts one day after they were nationalised by the state. In a landscape packed with hundreds of people, the filmmaker Nestor Almendros experiments with the use of light, with which he obtains an intense contrast between the bright seawater and the dark interiors of busses.
Planned as an independent work, separate from the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC), the piece did not please the authorities and was banned for not having been filmed with official permits.CUBA 1960. Betacam Digital. B&W. 10’
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I am Cuba (I am Cuba)
Mijail Kalatozov
Four stories describe Cuba’s slow evolution: from the Batista regime through Fidel Castro’s revolution. Four tales that reinforce the communist ideal as opposed to capitalism. Through the eyes of Maria, a young woman forced to be a prostitute, the hard work performed by Pedro in the sugar cane fields, the ideas of a student revolutionary and the destitution that Mario’s family experiences in Sierra Maestra, I Am Cuba shows how the island frees itself of its political dependence and reaffirm its own identity, so singular and independent, with all its contradictions and aspirations.
CUBA / URSS 1964. 35 mm. B&W. 141’
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Isla en llamas (Pylayushchiy ostrov)
Roman Karmen
Blazing Island recounts the events that occurred on the beach called Playa de Girón. Such events are historically known as the Bay of Pigs invasion. From the perspective of the Russian filmmaker Roman Karmen, the film speaks of the CIA’s frustrated intervention in Cuba.
RUSSIA 1962. Betacam Digital. B&W. 75’
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La novia de Cuba (Kyuba no koibito)
Kazuo Kuroki
A Japanese sailor lands in Cuba and is eager to take in the scenery there. He is enamored with a local girl and soon love blossoms between the two. She speaks of the pre-Castro days when the Batista government contributed to the demise of her family. The woman leaves him when her devotion to the revolution becomes greater than her love for the lovelorn sailor. Stock footage shows Castro giving a speech that idolizes Che Guevara and calls for the revolution to spread to South America.
JAPAN / CUBA 1969. 35 mm. B&W. 101’
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Oro de Cuba (Oro de Cuba)
Alejandro Saderman
Oro de Cuba is a documentary by the Argentine filmmaker Alejandro Saderman that explores Cuba’s evolution by examining the development of its most important industry: sugar production. From the discovery of America up through the figure of Reinaldo Castro, an outstanding cane cutter who was named National Work Hero, the film discusses the work done by African slaves, their replacement by Chinese cutters when slavery was abolished and the incorporation of mechanical harvesters.
CUBA 1965. 35 mm. B/N. 47’
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Palmas cubanas (Palmas cubanas)
Rosina Prado
No translation available
CUBA 1963. Betacam Digital. B&N 26’
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Para quién baila La Habana (Komu tancí Havana)
Vladimir Cech
Two friends who fought against the Batista dictatorship meet again after the Revolution’s triumph. One of them, whose interests have been affected by the revolutionary government’s policies, changes his opinion regarding the new welfare state.
CUBA / CZECHOSLOVAKIA 1963. 35 mm. B&W. 78
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Patria o muerte (Patria o muerte)
Jerzy Hoffman, Edward Skórzewski
In 1962, the provocative Polish documentary makers Jerzy Hoffman and Edward Skórzewski made Patria o muerte, a film document about the Cuban Revolution.
POLAND 1962. 35 mm B&W.
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Pepe Trinchera (Pepe Trinchera)
Harry Reade
Part of the well-known series featuring the Cuban animated character, Pepe, created by the Australian director Harry Reade, Pepe Trinchera tells the population how to build a shelter and how to dig a trench when faced with an air attack.
CUBA 1968. Color. 10’
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Prelude 11 (Prelude 11)
Kurt Maetzig
Kurt Maetzig was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1911. In 1932 he began a series of internships with filmmakers. Maetzig worked as a specialist in film technology and photochemistry for a number of Berlin firms and eventually ran his own laboratory for photochemistry.
In 1944 Maetzig joined the underground German Communist Party; he was one of the members of the Filmaktiv involved in the founding of DEFA (Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft). He worked as a director, author, and speaker, and he also became DEFA's artistic director in 1946.
Maetzig directed more than 20 feature films before retiring in 1975. His first feature film Marriage in the Shadows, the first film that was shown in all four occupied German zones reached over 10 million people and gained worldwide acclaim.CUBA / EAST GERMANY (DEFA), 1963. Betacam Digital. B&W. 92’
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Salut les cubains (Salut les cubains)
Agnès Varda
FRANCE / CUBA 1963. 35 mm. B&W. 30’
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The Life of Juanita Castro (The Life of Juanita Castro)
Andy Warhol
Ronald Tavel’s script for the film was inspired by an article by Castro’s sister appearing in Life in 1964 entitled “My brother is a tyrant and he must go”. In this subversive avant-garde satire on Latin American politics, Fidel Castro is played by a woman. All the actors, who play the members of Castro’s family, are seated on rows of chairs as if they were posing for a family portrait. Following the indications made by Tavel, who is seated in the last row, at one point the actors are told to say their lines twice: once in English and once in Spanish.
The Life of Juanita Castro was directed by Andy Warhol.USA 1965. 16 mm. B&W. 66’
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The Young Rebel (The Young Rebel)
Julio García Espinosa
With a screenplay by the writer Cesare Zavattini, El joven rebelde tells the story of Pedro, a young peasant who leaves home to join the Rebel Army, camped out in the Sierra Maestra. His impetuousness and rebel spirit bring him into confrontations with his superiors who, although they think he is brave, prefer not to send him on vital missions because they fear he will act irresponsibly. Love, friendship, the battle to survive and triumph all unfold until they culminate in the Battle of Guisa, a decisive battle for the revolution in which Pedro reaches maturity as a combatant.
CUBA 1961. 35 mm. B&W. 83’
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Tierra olvidada (Tierra olvidada)
Oscar Torres
In 1960, the Dominican filmmaker Oscar Torres collaborated with the recently founded Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC), making the first part of a documentary series that was dedicated to the rehabilitation of the area of Cienaga de Zapata. Forgotten Land shows the difficult situation of the colliers working there and presents the government’s projects for taking people out of the environment where they had been living for generations.
The short film won several international awards, including the Second Prize at the Festival dei Popoli in Florence.CUBA 1960. 35 mm. B&W. 21’
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Topaz (Topaz)
Alfred Hitchcock
A high-ranking Soviet officer who has defected to the United States informs an American secret service agent that the Russians are building a missile base in Cuba. André Devereaux, a friend of the agent’s and the chief of the French secret service in the United States, is alarmed when he discovers that this news seems to be related to Soviet penetration of French intelligence. He ends up in Cuba trying to find out the truth behind his suspicions of a leak in Western intelligence networks.
ESTADOS UNIDOS 1969. Formato. Color. 143’
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We shall Return (We shall Return)
Philip S. Goodman
In this political drama, a bourgeois Cuban landowner and his family flee to Miami to escape Castro's rule. There he meets his eldest son, an ardent supporter of Castro who is planning to ruin the Bay of Pigs invasion. The patriotic father takes extreme measures to keep his son from his treachery.
USA 1962. DVD. B&W. 92’
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Yanqui, No! (Yanqui, No!)
Richard Leacock
When the United States forced Cuba to leave the OAS (Organization of American States), demonstrations broke out in the streets of Venezuela. Elsewhere, in Cuba, Castro made a speech to the population. In Yanqui, No! Richard Leacock captures the anti-American sentiment present in Latin America by depicting brief episodes from the lives of certain important personalities.
USA 1960. 16 mm. B&W. 55’
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¿Qué es lo bello? (¿Qué es lo bello?)
Rosina Prado
In the short film ¿Qué es lo bello?, filmmaker Rosina Prado compares old habits and new social conduct in the Cuban town of Trinidad.
CUBA 1965. Betacam Digital. B&W. 10’
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