The festival’s best film was not on the screen
By Aurelio Pedroso
Havana immersed itself in a cinematographic feast, with more than 400 choices to make us think, laugh and meditate. That’s what movies are for.
Every day and night, hundreds of people, Cuban and foreign, filled the nearly 20 halls made available for the competition or attended previews or participated in meetings, chats or discussions with filmmakers and other colleagues in the profession.
The magical realism that envelops this island since ancient times made it possible for many Cubans to opt for the so-called “passport,” which, for a laughable price, gave the bearer access to any feature, short or documentary film that might aspire to the Corals (the prizes).
With the passport, a filmgoer spent little time on line, and was able to enter and leave the hall as often as desired. Besides, it was purchased in national currency. The passport was a blessing from the cultural authorities and the organizers of the 31st Festival of the New (by now mature) Latin American Cinema. That is to say, a non-celestial blessing.
After talking with some of the foreigners who participated, listening to their comments, and answering their questions, I came to the inescapable conclusion that the best film was not on the big or little screen but on the street itself. The street was so filled with details and other elements of interest that it constituted an authentic, palpable cinematographic project performed in 3-D.
In other words, the street was “de película,” an expression that, lamentably, time is condemning to obsolescence. Havana was a super-production without extras, but with top-ranking actors. No directors, producers or editors. A free-wheeling script, hundreds of locations and the best lighting ever.
Cuba on the eve of the 51st year of its peculiar Revolution. A capital city different from all the others that, by this time, are decorated for the Christmas and New Year’s festivities. When it comes to Cuba, it is the advent of a new year of a guerrilla war that ended victoriously with the escape of the tyrant, early on the first day of January 1959. Half a century plus one year. It is written rapidly but it was lived intensely.
A lifesize Santa Claus sits at the entrance to a dwelling on Seventh Avenue, Miramar. Multicolor lights decorate a pine tree about 150 cm. tall in a garden on Eighth Street in the same neighborhood. If you could look into the houses, you’d see that many already have a little tree. On the street, nothing. Zero Christmas and a lot of sobriety, particularly in the interior decoration of hard-currency stores.
I once heard Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar say that Havana is beautiful but that it seems to have been bombed. Yet, despite its woes, it displays its charms. Its flaws, too. Fortunately, this year, when international specialists forecast severe hurricanes, none flayed the island, much less brought its lethal force against the capital.
A Latin American filmmaker told me that, in his small country, any tourist who strays from a guided tour can expect to be mugged and not learn anything about the city. But here in Havana, he said, everything is history, culture, color and the flavor of the people. He told me he preferred to walk Havana’s streets and avenues on his own, drink a mojito somewhere (I don’t remember the address he gave me) and talk with strangers in the middle of the street.
Everything indicates that the festivities will be marked by an atmosphere of tranquility. Although the famous year-end parties have not yet been announced, which usually result in much drinking and brawling, I would say (on a hunch) that this time there will be improved public safety and fewer spectacles of that kind.
Recently, there has been a stronger tendency to await Christmas Day and New Year at home, with family and friends. On the street, absolutely nothing. But young people are uncontrollable and, if they find space with affordable options, they’ll go there.
To say that the ordinary Cuban is not worried is like expecting pears from an elm tree. This has been a year with many limitations, due to internal and external causes that are well known and discussed with the most varied interpretations.
Food, housing, health, transportation and education constitute daily problems that, for the moment, will not be definitely solved. But attempts will be made to attenuate them.
Food has been (and will be in 2010) the most sacred, most sensitive topic, as we hope for a year with less government, political and familial tension. The situation at home is decisive, because the state of a nation is “cooked up” in the kitchen, just as black beans are seasoned.
From a kitchen can emanate the most pleasant odor, but so can harsh curses directed at an employee in a state market, a black-market profiteer, a current minister and even the president of a country.
The importation of foodstuffs makes for disheartening news. The State has announced that it cannot pay in freely convertible currency almost 80 percent of what is needed to feed 11-plus million Cubans.
In numbers that are imprecise, but in the dozens, some foreign food suppliers are withdrawing from the local market due to nonpayment or because they’re unable to repatriate their earnings. Because of proper information, the rumor is that the only available wine is the one left in the storehouses. And that’s just one example.
Fiction and reality united in this super-production that could be provisionally titled “Havana at year’s end.” A film about hope, without catastrophic expectations. Whoever doubts that should separate from the guided tour and knock at the door of a Cuban family in these “very merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year,” as the old postcards used to say.
Aurelio Pedroso, a Cuban journalist, is a member of the Progreso Weekly team.
