MADRID, Spain.- Enrique Díaz Quesada, considered a precursor of Cuban cinema, died in Havana on May 13, 1923 at the age of 40.
As a teenager, he was linked to the first Cuban short film, the missing witchmade in 1898 by the businessman and actor Jose E. Casasus.
In 1905, when he was only 20 years old, Díaz Quesada founded “The Moving Pictures Company” together with Francisco Rodríguez, to carry out cinematographic projections in the Martí and Albisu theaters in the capital. In these spaces he presented “Cuba al día”, considered the precedent of newscasts on the island.
With the help of his brother, photographer Juan José Díaz Quesada, he organized the first film studio in the country on a rooftop.
In those first years of the arrival of silent cinema in Cuba, a large number of audiovisuals were due to it. Among his productions are A duel on the banks of the Almendares (1907), The manigua or the Cuban woman (1915) and little stream (1922). Of the total of 17 realizations of him, only the documentary short film is preserved The Palatine Park. The rest were consumed by a fire in 1923. The documentary short Palatine Park he had filmed it in 1906 with the sponsorship of the company that owned the amusement center.
Nicknamed the father of Cuban cinema, he not only directed and produced, but also took charge, camera in hand, of the photography of his films. The first Cuban serial also emerged from it, in ten chapters, titled the evil genius (1920).
Enrique Díaz Quesada directed the first national feature film, titled Manuel García or The King of the Cub Fieldsa (1913), with the support of the producer Santos y Artigas.
His death was a great loss for the nascent Cuban cinema; With his death, Santos y Artigas abandoned film production.
