MIAMI, United States. – Cuban filmmaker Jorge Luis Sánchez died this Thursday in Havana due to cancer, according to reported on his Facebook profile cultural curator Alexis Triana, president of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC).
The filmmaker, close to turning 65 on January 21, was immersed in several large-scale projects at the time of his death, according to Triana.
“A deadly illness, terrible and unexpected, deprives us of his artistic genius, in the midst of great joint endeavors. Let us say goodbye to him with the immense ovation that all his work deserves,” the official wrote.
The ICAIC also He expressed his condolences to the director’s family on social networks.: “The Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry offers its deepest condolences to his wife and children, and shares at this time the pain of all his friends and colleagues.”
Sánchez was preparing to begin filming this month Performancehis latest feature film, for which he offered instructions to his team every day, as Triana detailed. At the same time, he was making progress in the production of the series “La Causa Común” and, a few weeks ago, he traveled to Nicaragua to reinstate his films at the National Cinematheque. The Benny and Looking for Casalin addition to visiting possible locations for a project related to José Martí, Máximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo.
The filmmaker also celebrated that his work Free Cuba would have inaugurated the First Cuban Film Festival in Washington, United States. Born in 1960, he graduated in Pedagogy and began as a fan of audiovisual production when he was barely 18 years old. He was founder of the National Federation of Cinema Clubs of Cuba.
In 1981 he joined the ICAIC: first as a camera assistant and, later, assistant director on films such as Baraguá, Clandestinos, A very old man with enormous wings and Mrs. Forbes’ Happy Summer. In 1987 he organized the Film and Video Workshop of the Hermanos Saíz Association (AHS), where numerous young filmmakers emerged, and he worked alongside the prominent documentary filmmaker Santiago Alvarez in it ICAIC Latin American Newscast.
He later collaborated in the filming of Secondary rolesby Orlando Rojas, and Hello Hemingwayby Fernando Pérez. In 1990 he directed some of his best-known documentaries, Looking for Casal and The Fanguitowhich earned him recognition at national and international festivals.
Sánchez realized one of his greatest desires in 2006 with The Benny, fiction feature film about the figure of Benny Morewhich achieved widespread critical and public success. His other notable works include the documentaries Heresy will never be easy (2009) and In 50 years (2009), as well as the musical Hopelessly together (2012) and free cuba (2015).
The director also taught at the ICAIC and at the San Antonio de los Baños International Film School.
For its part, the Assembly of Cuban Filmmakers (ACC) remembered on Facebook that Sánchez was the author of a “broad” artistic work. “His participation as a manager in several relevant cinematographic movements that occurred in the country, such as the Amateur Cinema, the AHS Workshop (which had so much relevance in the late 80s) and the most recent ICAIC Young Show, had Jorge Luis as a figure essential. His passion for cinema, the anthropological perspective in documentaries and even formal experimentation led him to go through different creative experiences,” said the independent group of filmmakers.
“The history of Cuban cinema cannot be written without him because his presence and energy were constant in the struggle of filmmakers for a Film Law, for the recognition of independent work and for legitimizing the right of artists to look critically at society. ”, the ACC also assured.
However, the group also acknowledged that “it was not immune to controversies and controversies.”
