[NYTr] CUBA: Film Frenzy Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:52:06 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit IPS News - Dec 14, 2007 http://www.ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=40474 CUBA: Film Frenzy by Dalia Acosta HAVANA, Dec 14 (IPS) - MarC-a MartC-nez and her husband go home every evening after participating in a ritual that is repeated every December, when the Cuban capital hosts the New Latin American Film Festival, an audiovisual feast that revolutionises the citybs routine for two weeks every year. During the festival the cinemas are awakened from the torpor in which they languish the rest of the year, when few new films are screened. People rush feverishly from place to place, disregarding the shortage of public transport or the battles to get in to see a highly praised film. "Itbs an opportunity to see a film in comfort, meet up with friends, and enjoy something completely different after the working day," MartC-nez told IPS. "The Film Festival is like the Book Fair, both are sacred events to me," said this retired nurse, 63, about the Dec. 4-14 filmfest. MartC-nez says the two weeks of the festival are exceptional, particularly because of the number and variety of new films she can see. The rest of the year she has to make do with the state television fare of mostly U.S. films, because she lives on the outskirts of Havana, a long way from the premiC(re circuit of movie theatres. The economic crisis that broke out in the 1990s hit cinemas hard all over the island. Many of them were left derelict, or converted to other purposes, such as housing, discothC(ques, shops, public toilets, offices or theatres. The paradox is that in Cuba, unlike other countries, the cinemas were not closed down because of lack of audiences but because of physical deterioration. By the early years of this century, half the cinemas had closed in Havana alone. Those in outlying neighbourhoods were the most heavily affected by the decline, although some famous movie theatres on the San Rafael boulevard, a busy shopping area in the heart of Havana, also closed down. MartC-nez and her husband JosC) Zayas discovered their mutual passion for films early on. Even while they were on their honeymoon at the Capri hotel in Havana, they went out one day to see a musical film from the former Czechoslovakia. They both prefer films based on real life. Zayas mentioned, for instance, the Brazilian film "Cidade de Deus" (City of God) by Fernando Meirelles, which won the Grand Coral First Prize at the 2002 Havana Festival. It portrays the violence in the favelas (shanty towns) of Rio de Janeiro, inspired by a real life story. "Films like these keep you awake," Zayas, 62, told IPS. In the peace and quiet of his home, after working an eight-hour day in a machine shop, he tends to nod off in front of the television, unless one of those films in which fiction gives way to reality is on. The same thirst for reality was shared by the hundreds of people who crowded the Acapulco cinema in the capital on Dec. 9 to see "Das Leben der Anderen" (The Lives of Others) by German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, awarded the Oscar for best foreign language film this year. The feature-length film is set in the final years of East Germany (GDR), before its reunification with West Germany (FRG). It shows the working methods of the Stasi, the secret police of the formerly socialist country, which advised the Cuban authorities on the training of its intelligence agents in the mid-1970s. The public screening of this film could be interpreted as a further sign of openness on the part of the Cuban government, in a year which has already seen a lively debate in intellectual circles about the cultural restrictions that were applied in previous decades, and the need to create opportunities for dialogue, the confrontation of ideas and diversity. Alfredo Guevara, the coordinator of the Festival, said at the inauguration on Dec. 4 that President Fidel Castro, two years ago, "called for an end to inertia, immobility, conformity, complacency, indifference, voluntary or coerced silence, settled routines and uncritical acceptance, which lead irremediably to the corruption of the soul." Guevara also mentioned acting President RaC:l Castrobs speech on Jul. 26, which launched wide-ranging popular debates on the island from August to October, the results of which are still unknown. RaC:l Castro asked people to change concepts and methods that were appropriate in their time, but have now been overtaken by life itself. The right course of action is not to close the doors, but to let the fresh air in, opening the windows wide. Our response should be creating with work after work, by artists and institutions with real designs that deserve to be called cultural, said Guevara, who founded the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Arts and Industry (ICAIC) in 1959. The festival did not escape the usual tensions with the United States. U.S. filmmaker Brian de Palma was denied a visa by Washington to attend the presentation of his film "Redacted", at the opening of this 29th Havana Film Festival, where close to 500 movies are being shown, and not only from Latin America. Far away from the bustling crowds around the city centre cinemas, MartC-nez and Zayas go to the Glauber Rocha movie theatre, at the headquarters of the New Latin American Film Foundation, with the same eagerness that as children and teenagers they went to see Mexican melodramas and Westerns from the U.S. "Itbs entertainment, and it improves quality of life," says MartC-nez, who usually goes with her friends from the University for Older Adults, a government initiative which offers an opportunity for people over 60 to prepare for the challenges of ageing. "Quality of life is not just about eating vegetables and doing exercises," she said. "While theybre at the cinema, older adults arenbt worrying about illnesses and medicines." The Glauber Rocha movie theatre puts on year-round weekly film shows for older adults as part of the national programme to care for this population group, which makes up 16.2 percent of Cubabs 11.2 million people. 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