“He was the angel of the Jiribilla of Cuban cinema,” said director Kiki Álvarez from social networks.
Miami, United States. – Manuel Marzel, Cuban filmmaker based in Spain since 1997 and author of a brief but unrepeatable filmography in the 90s in Cuba, died on Tuesday in Valencia at age 57, victim of a heart attack, according to Diary of Cuba The director José Luis Aparicio. “We are all in shock and devastated,” he said.
The news was confirmed on social networks by friends and colleagues of the filmmaker. From Facebook, director Kiki Álvarez express: “He was the angel of the jiribilla of Cuban cinema,” and added with regret: “Another who dies away from Cuba because Cuba was small for his wings.” For his part, editor Ricardo Acosta wrote: “You never looked like others, you have always been faithful to your beauty, imperishable, contagious.”
Marzel was born in Santiago de Cuba on September 2, 1967 and, after moving to Havana, was formed as a graphic designer at the Higher Institute of Industrial Design (ISDI). During his student stage, he joined the Cineclub Sigma, where he directed his first three short films, which obtained recognition and several awards, according to a biography published in the blog LastChistmas.
In 1991 he entered the International School of Film and TV of San Antonio de los Baños, where he continued his training as a filmmaker. There he directed three other shorts and graduated in the management specialty. In an interview published in Rialta MagazineMarzel recalled his film debut: “I started to make cinema just in 1990, and surprisingly my first short (A NORMAN MC LAREN) It was such a great success that they even rewarded me with a coral. He was 23 years old and was quite naive. ”
As of 1994, he joined the Cuban Institute of Art and Cinematographic Industry (ICAIC)where he directed a new short film, as well as the Spots Promotional of two editions of the International Festival of the New Latin American Cinema. His incorporation to ICAIC, Marzel himself recalled, was due to the producer and cultural promoter Pepe Horta.
That same year, the Havana Festival projected Marzel … to Spinettaits first and only feature film produced entirely by the ICAIC. This work, according to review Rialta Magazinebecame its final presentation letter, consolidating its place within the group of emerging authors of the 1990s.
In addition to the aforementioned documentary The whale is good (1991), his filmography in Cuba included the short film Chao Sarah (1993), according to the digital encyclopedia of Cuban audiovisual (Endac). Marzel also designed several film posters, some in collaboration with designer Eduardo Marín. At that same stage he tried to carry out a new feature film, but his script was censored.
In 1997 he emigrated to Spain and settled in Valencia. There he taught film script in academies, cineclubs and cultural spaces. In addition, he wrote several feature film and a short novel, published in that city. In 2021, Marzel announced through his social networks that he had acquired Spanish nationality.
The specialized criticism highlighted his work as one of the most unique of Cuban audiovisual. “Manuel Marzel is our great given filmmaker. He is the greatest. It doesn’t matter if he is probably the only one,” wrote José Luis Aparicio and Katherine Bisquet. “His denial of the rational, his taste for the absurd and his decadent and ironic anarchism (which comes to self -defle as frivolous) model a cinema whose only principle is not having principles. That is why each film of his is so different from the others, although sensory connections are established, iconic or level of tone.”
Despite its low public profile and limited production, Marzel remained a cult figure within the kinephile circles. In recent years, his name was claimed by new generations of Cuban filmmakers, who consider him a figure advanced to his time.
So far it has not been informed about acts of tribute or wake, but numerous messages of affection and farewell have multiplied in social networks. Marzel leaves a fragmentary but essential legacy to understand the renewal of Cuban cinema in the 1990s, as well as a lesson of authenticity and creative resistance that transcends borders and geographies.
