The Cinematheque of Cuba has programmed for this month a cycle that integrates the five favorite films of the 2017 National Film Award, the director of photography Raúl Rodríguez, which can be seen from Wednesday, February 9 to Sunday, February 13, always at 5: 00 pm and at the cinema 23 and 12.
His list is dominated by that extraordinary work that is Fanny and Alexanderby Ingmar Bergman, and which also includes Cumbiteby Tomás Gutiérrez Alea; The loves of a blondeby Milos Forman; Mary of my heart, by Jaime Humberto Hermosillo; Y Cinderella in Parisby Stanley Donen.
Regarding this selection, Rodríguez confessed: “It was not easy at all to choose my five favorite films. Cinematography is over 100 years old and good examples abound. There are films that obsess me. I am constantly aware of them. One of those notable productions that have kept me awake at night is this election.”
Cumbitefor example, is for this great cinephile a major drama, an extraordinary feature film little seen and forgotten in our theaters and on television, and only the Cinematheque has given such a much-needed disclosure to such a cinematographic work of ours.
Directed by Titón in 1964, it featured the convincing performances of Teté Vergara, Lorenzo Louis and Martha Evans, who take part in a mixture of ancestral love and hate, which takes place in a small Haitian village during the 1940s.
Thus, rejecting all artifice of style and all flourish of language, Titón limits himself to showing us these men in their indigence and in their frenetic voodoo ceremonies, in which they believe they find the only remedy for their misery.
Cumbite It will be screened on Saturday, February 12, at 5:00 pm, in the capital’s rooms 23 and 12.
In successive months, other recognized personalities of the Cuban seventh art will present their personal selections.
