Nativity
By María de la Soledad
A new born child changes everyone’s life. On the preceding days to the birth, the waiting of the advent – a family Advent –the attention is on the mother, on her symptoms, on her fearful happiness. The same question is asked by friends and relatives, via telephone or the knock on the front door: “Already?” “Is it today?”
The awaited moment arrives. Bathed in blood and tears comes the Son of Man. Parents, grandparents, uncles and friends – as new shepherds and Magi – gather to contemplate the newly born. Embraces, emotions and inner questions: What will this child be? His future profession is not the greatest concern. Will the child be happy? A good person? Intelligent? Sensitive? A solidarity person?
Breast feeding begins, a unique sensation of giving. And the bath, which the mother gives with insecure and inexperienced hands. And sleep, that unusual experience of interrupted sleep. The days go by, slow and rushing at the same time, and life goes on, at first with a staggering routine.
Whoever has lived the intense experience of a new born in the family understands Christmas very well. The real, deep, intense Christmas. That season that does not require trees, stores or costly presents. The season that proclaims at Christmas Eve Mass: “A Child has been born to us, a Son has been given to us.”
“The Word was made flesh and camped among us”. The biblical verse seems a headline. With such news no external feast is imperative. Wreaths are not needed, but feeling in the spirit of the tenderness of Emmanuel, which means “God with us”. And the certainty that this Child Jesus, newly born, no matter if the historical date was or was not December 25, can also, as any other newborn child, change our lives.
An exclusive interview with Fernando Pérez, director of the filmSuite Havana
This simple, tender and peaceful man has had the enormous courtesy, in these days that so many awards have been showered on him like a tropical downpour, of sitting down at the other end of the telephone line, and patiently copying my questions, due to an unexpected computer breakdown. He seems to have interiorized José Martí’s words: “All the world’s glory fits in a corn kernel.”
His latest film, Suite Havana, was honored at the recent Festival of the New Latin American Cinema held in the Cuban capital. First Coral Prize; Coral for Best Director; Best Music and Best Sound Track. And the awards by Fipresci (International Federation of Cinema Critics), Caracol, from the Writers’ and Artists’ Union (UNEAC); Glauber Rocha, by the foreign press present at the festival; Journalists’ Union’s Circle of Culture; Cuban Cinema Critics Association; El Mégano, by the National Federation of Film Clubs; Camino, by the Martin Luther King Memorial Center; and a Special Acknowledgement by the Pablo de la Torriente Brau Cultural Center.
Fernando Pérez should be used to receiving awards. He is the most honored film director at the Havana Festival in its 25 year history. In 1987, his film Clandestinos (Underground) received the award for Best First Film, and Cristina Santos an award for Best Actress. In 1990,Hello, Hemingway received first prize and again its leading lady, Laura de la Uz, was named Best Actress. Madagascar(1994) was the jury’s special prize. La vida es silbar (Life is to whistle, 1998) garnered first prize, Best Director, Best Cinematography for Raúl Pérez Ureta –the same cinematographer of Suite Havana who also deserved it this year – and a prize for actress Claudia Rojas.
Fernando Pérez was chosen by Cuban film critics as best director of the decade in the 1990s, and Suite Havana has been nominated for two Goya awards, the prestigious Spanish equivalent of the Oscar, as Best Foreign Film and Best Documentary; it’s also the Cuban entrant as Best Foreign Film for the Oscar.
Overwhelming? Fernando Pérez is not easily overwhelmed. He keeps answering the phone with total ease. Warm, caring. And a he definitely overcomes technical inconveniences. Here are his answers to my questions.
María de la Soledad (MS):Where and when were you born? How did you become a filmmaker?
Fernando Pérez (FP):I was born in Guanabacoa (across the bay from Havana) on November 19, 1944. All my childhood and adolescence is linked to Guanabacoa. I remember the matinees at the Carral movie theater and the Mexican movies at the Ensueño. My father, who was the town’s postman, took me to the movies two or three times a week, because we were both movie fans. In 1958 we saw The Bridge on the River Kwai together, the movie by David Lean, and we both were emotionally dumbstruck. It was the first time that I heard of a film director, because my father only said: “That movie is very well directed.” I believe that was the moment I first felt the urge to be a filmmaker. I had to wait until the ICAIC (Cuban Film Institute) was founded in 1959 to make that dream come true.
I began there in the middle of the Missile Crisis in 1962 as assistant producer (“C” grade) in a Cuban-Czech co-production, For Whom Havana Dances? The job title may sound important, but actually my work was as a messenger. I was never on the set. But the experience served to make me realize that to be a film director I had to be educated, that I needed formal training; so doubling with my work at ICAIC I went to the University of Havana and enrolled in the School of the Arts.
When I got my degree I began working as assistant director and my real training as a filmmaker began.
MS:How did you graduate to long feature films, to fiction, to your first film, Underground?
FP:First, I had to make many documentaries. I always say that I was more of a documentalist by obligation than by vocation. But the documentary was my school. And my university, the ICAIC Latin American Newsreel, where Santiago Álvarez inaugurated a creative workshop in which many filmmakers of my generation grew up filming news, making movies every week. To Santiago and the Newsreel I owe my curiosity, the passion for reality and for discovering in it the most unusual aspects.
My generation had to wait a long time to do fiction. Conditions at the time did not allow it. Today with digital movies, fiction is much easier. I made Underground (my first long feature fiction film) in 1988, when I was 44. But I am not complaining. It had to be that way and there was nothing that could be done about it. That’s why I say that 4 is my lucky number. I was born in ’44, made my first movie at 44, and I make a film every 4 years.
MS:Let’s talk about Suite Havana.
FP:Suite Havanawas a proposal by a Spanish producer, José María Valdés, from Wandavision. The original idea was to make a 55 minute documentary in digital video for European TV, as part of a series that would be called “Invisible Cities”, in which each director of the chosen cities would give his or her personal vision. I wasn’t sure about accepting, because documentaries have always been harder for me than fiction, but finally I agreed for three reasons:
1) The subject was Havana, my obsession;
2) It was my first digital experience;
3) I hadn’t made a film in four years!
I decided not to make a traditional documentary, as well as using a language nearer to fiction (with lighting and a careful staging). I avoided interviews and relied on the image and soundtrack. I chose to reflect a day in the life of the city through characters that to me are most representative of the city, because they are the most popular and least represented (in Cuban media as well as abroad).
MS:How did you meet those people and how did you choose them?
FP:I did not know many of them personally, but I knew that they existed because I had seen them in the streets of Havana. It wasn’t hard to work with them. From the beginning they opened the doors of their homes and of their hearts, fully trusting, asking for nothing in return. They are the film.
The TV series was never made for lack of financing, but I owe José María his personal backing, because he stayed with the project and allowed me to make it into the film that is Suite Havana.
MS:In your two latest films, Life is to whistle and Suite Havana, even if the movie house is packed, many spectators have felt alone, alone with your film and you, touched by the humanity and tenderness of your proposal. Is that your goal?
FP:As a movie-goer I prefer films that provoke first an emotion and then a meditation. I consider myself more of a movie fan than a filmmaker. I think I have lived multiple lives, countless adventures and conflicts in movie theaters. What I like best is to share with the public the same emotion in the darkness of a movie theater. Those are also the films I like to make.
MS: Suite Havanais controversial. What do you say? Is it a documentary? Is it fiction?
FP:Suite Havanais a documentary because we see people who are absolutely real performing their lives. What it has of fiction is the associative language, the staging. I believe that contemporary cinema is in a search in which the borders between genres disappear. In the end Suite Havana is just that, a film.
MS:The song at the end, “Quiérememucho” (Love Me Very Much), is that what Havana asks of its inhabitants? What Havanians ask of each other?
FP:“Quiéreme mucho” is a feeling. The final sequence stems from the language that attracts me most in movies: the language of associations, of the creation of moods and different emotions. That sequence can have as many interpretations as spectators. But its essence, the point of departure, is a declaration of love for Havana.
MS: Suite Havana is very controversial. There are some who are upset for the Havana it shows, because they think that it doesn’t show a better Havana. Others, on the contrary, are satisfied because they believe it’s the only Havana that exists. Why did you choose the Havana you present in the film?
FP:I wanted to show the complexity of the reality we live in. I’m conscious that Suite Havana is not about all of Havana, but about a part of it that has to do with the spirit of the city. Our reality has always been subject to extreme interpretations that end up being reduced, because it can’t be seen in black and white. I’m not worried about controversy. I believe that artistic expression should not be sketchy, but reflect contradictions and the ambivalent character of what it reflects.
MS:Did you expect so many awards?
FP:Awards are always welcome, but you can’t rely on them because generally they are subject to many circumstances. But I must say that on this occasion the Corals have had a very particular significance and emotion, because I feel that they belong to the public who, since the premiere of Suite Havana, has felt the film as their very own.
MS:In the film each person has a dream to fulfill. ¿Which is Fernando Pérez’s dream?
FP:The three things that I love most are my three children, films and Cuba. My dream is that I never lack any of them.
