The journalist and film critic Rolando Pérez Betancourt, recognized with the José Martí National Journalism Award in 2007, died this Saturday in Havana at the age of 77, reported Granma newspaper.
Dissatisfied, profound, with a capacity for analysis and conviction that is difficult to match, “he earned the respect and affection of the Cuban people,” reports Granma about Pérez Betancourt, who was born in September 1945 and graduated in Journalism from the University of La Havana in 1973.
He began his working life as an apprentice cashier at the Hoy newspaper, where he later became a typographer. In 1965, he was one of the founders of the Granma newspaper after the merger of Hoy and Revolución, organs of the Popular Socialist Party and the July 26 Movement, respectively.
Pérez Betancourt carried out various functions as a journalist in Granma and was head of the cultural page of that medium for several years. Since 1973 he maintained an opinion column and film criticism called “Chronicle of a Spectator”, where he addressed different phenomena related to Cuban and international cinematography.
“His critical and journalistic work constitutes a legacy that, together with that of other greats in the profession, will accompany the work of the new generations of reporters,” Granma specifies.
On television, Pérez Betancourt hosted the emblematic space “La séptima puerta” and other programs such as “Tanda del Domingo” and “Noche de Cine”.
For his career, he received the José Martí National Prize for Journalism (2007), the José Antonio Fernández de Castro National Prize for Cultural Journalism (1999) and the Distinction for National Culture.
