Cinema

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Gabriel Veyre, a representative of the Lumiere Company in Paris, arrived in Havana from Veracruz on January 18,1897. He brought cinema to Cuba barely two years after its appearance in Paris on February 13, 1895. A local newspaper reported the event as "moving life size photographs projected on a quadrilateral canvas."

With its origins in the projection of fixed images in the second half of the nineteenth century, cinema in Cuba reflected and graphically documented national history. Mirroring Cuban events and, considering developments in production technology and marketing, we can divide the history of cinema in Cuba into three periods: 1897 to 1933 corresponding to silent cinema; from 1932 to 1959 for the "talkies" prior Cuban Revolution; and from 1959 to the present. According to data, though not exact, regarding the first two periods, the cinematographic production in Cuba grew steadily for both fiction and documentary films.
 

The uncertainty in the figures for the production between 1897 and 1959 is due to the loss of a good portion of the materials, as well as dispersion or absence of information. It is estimated that 85% of the films have disappeared. From the silent phase, only the 1906 Enrique Díaz Quesada's documentary, El parque de Palatino (Palatino's Park) was preserved, together with portions of other documentaries for a total of less than dozen. Preserved from the fiction production are La Virgen de la Caridad (The Virgin of Charity) from 1930, and portions of El veneno de un beso (The Poison of a Kiss), both of them directed by Ramón Peón. In 1928, cinema criticism and reviews, authored by José Manuel Valdés Rodriguez, started appearing in La Revista de la Habana.

On February 7, 1897, a month after Veyre introduced cinema in Havana, a short Simulacro de incendio (Fire Drill) was filmed in Cuba. Havana firemen and María Tubau, a Spanish actress much admired by the Queen, who was visiting Cuba's capital, were featured in this short film.

In 1898, cinema also arrived in Santiago de Cuba by the hand of North American cameramen, specialists from Vitagraph, who accompanied Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders. They were charged with filming scenes of the battles (photograms or cinematic views), now preserved in Washington, D.C. at the Library of Congress. Cuban film Director Pastor Vega used some of their takes in his documentary ¡Viva la República! (Long Live the Republic.).

These Vitagraph cameramen made the films Tearing Down the Spanish Flag and Fighting with Our Boys in Cuba. Once back in New York they were asked if they had filmed the naval battle between the Spaniards and the North American squadrons in Santiago de Cuba, and they answered affirmatively, thus originating what is considered the birth of the special effects industry. In Chicago, with the assistance of Edward H. Amet, they purchased postcards of the Spanish and the United States battleships that had taken part in the naval confrontation. They floated them on corks in a tub and, with a bit of moving water and a small amount of gunpowder to simulate explosions and smoke, a battle, that was taken as legitimate, was "reenacted."

Both because of the Tubau and the Firemen short in Havana and the North American filming in Santiago de Cuba, Cuban cinema had political dimensions from its beginning. This political nature was not lost in subsequent years, although its propaganda function increasingly shifted in order to incorporate commercial products.

In February 1898, North American crews filmed the funeral of the victims of the battleship Maine (Burial of the Maine Victims), whose wake was held at the Havana City Hall. Two other Edison films were made about this period of the prelude to war: Wreck of the Maine and Cuban Refugees Waiting for Rations.

All of this interest in the Maine, which has continued through the years in the United States as well as in Cuba and other countries, had its origin in all the conjectures regarding the cause of the explosion that led to its sinking in the Bay of Havana. George Mélies in France reconstructed scenes of the blast. In 1912 the North American and Cuban crews (Enrique Diaz Quesada and José G. González) filmed the rescue of the remains of the large ship and its transfer to its final resting place in the high seas. Another Edison project was a short film about North American troops marching in Havana in 1899: General Lee's Procession, Havana.

The most outstanding personality of this first period, that is, the silent cinema, was the above mentioned Enrique Diaz Quesada, Besides several documentaries, he is credited with the short fiction film Un duelo a orillas del Almendares (A Duel by the Almendares River) in 1907, and the first full-length fiction film Manuel Garcia or The King of the Cuban Fields (1913). With Diaz Quesada's collaboration, the actor José E. Casasús made the very first Cuban film, a short, commercial in nature, entitled El brujo desapareciendo (The Disappearing Wizard) in 1898. Casasús was also the first one to take cinema (along with electricity) to towns in the interior of Cuba.

Until the end of the First World War, films made by European, French and Italian companies, the main worldwide producers at the time, dominated the Cuban market. In 1908, a serious intent to get control of the production and exhibition of films in Cuba was undertaken by a company known as Santos & Artigas, Formed by Pablo Santos and Jesus Artigas. With Diaz Quesada as their director they set the tone for cinema in Cuba until approximately 1920. Santos & Artigas began their association with cinema in Cuba in 1905 as representatives of the Gaumont firm, but in 1908 they founded the Havana Film Company (Campania Cinematogratica Habanera), and in 1910 they expanded their interests, with Diaz Quesada, by incorporating film production. Some of the above mentioned films, and others, came out of that partnership, including: Salida de las tropas para Santiago de Cuba durante la Guerra Racista (The Troops Departure to Santiago de Cuba during the Racist War), also known as La campaña (The Campaign, 1912); the series titled Riquezas de Cuba (Cuba's Riches), centered on the sugar industry (1913) the feature film El Capitán Mambi (The "Mambi" Captain) or Libertadores y guerrilleros (Freedom Fighters and Guerrillas, 1914); La manigua o La mujer cubana (The Cuban Jungle or the Cuban Woman, 1915), which set an attendance record at its début; El rescate del Brigadier Sanguily (Brigadier General Sanguily's Rescue, 1916); El tabaquero de Cuba (The Cuban Tobacco Worker) and El capital y el trabajo (Capital and Labor, 1917). All these titles show the interest in making films with a Cuban plot, an obvious interest in historical and social themes.

In 1915 the Caribbean Film Company, a distributor of "Paramount," was established in Cuba, beginning what led to Hollywood's control over the Cuban market. The opportunity was created with the start of the First World War and a drop in film productions in Europe. In that context, in April 1915, Díaz Quesada filmed Jack Johnson's fight with Jess Willard in Havana. A contract was signed between Santos & Artigas and Jack Johnson, a black boxer, to film his encounter with Willard, a white boxer. The contract was later canceled before the fight, but Díaz Quesada managed to film it anyway, thus leaving irrefutable evidence of the fact that the fight had been sold out. Johnson sued Santos & Artigas for half a million pesos (Cuban currency but the Court ruled in favor of the impresarios. The film could not be exhibited in the United States, but it was shown in England. In a 1970 film on Willard, The Great White Hope, it is confirmed that Johnson had sold the rights to film the fight.

In 1916, one of the biggest movie theaters in Havana, the Campoamor, featured only North American films, without great success, we should add, due to popular rejection of the "cowboy and indian" type of films. They enjoyed great popularity years later, when the European cinema, already in crisis, lost its audiences.

Another example of the clash of interests, on the part of the United States, not only with European producers but also with Cuban producers, took place in January 1916 with the film El rescate del Brigadier Sanguily, produced by Santos & Artigas and Díaz Quesada, which opened within a day of Edison's film Un mensaje a García. Both films addressed historical subjects. The latter one was on Cuban patriot Major General Calixto García. The municipal government gave a gold medal to Santos & Artigas, but Edison's nomination was not successful because those who said that the film falsified history convinced the Mayor of Havana to withhold the award. In 1936, 20th Century Fox issued a remake of the film A Message for Garcia starring Wallace Berry and Barbara Stanwyck.

But in fact, control of the Cuban film market was moving from Cuban into North American hands. In 1914, eight out of fourteen firms operating in Cuba were Italian, and only one was North American. Those were years when audiences preferred Bertini or Pina Menicheli.

Once Paramount was established in Cuba, others followed: Fox Films (1915), United Artists of Cuba (1921), Metro Goldwyn Mayer (1923), First National Pictures (1925, a subsidiary of the company that became Warner Bros.) and Columbia Pictures (1931). New interests emerged with the increase of activity between Cuba and Hollywood: Gloria Swanson filmed in Havana, and Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona traveled to Hollywood twice to write music for films. One of the Lecuona films was Metro's Cuban Love Song, with Lawrence Tiber and Lupe Velez in the lead.

In 1919, the prolific union of Santos & Artigas and Díaz Quesada was dissolved. The impresarios abandoned cinema for the promotion of sports, theater and the circus. Díaz Quesada, the great pioneer and the most important director of the first decades of the history of Cuban cinema, shot his last silent film Arroyito (a bandit's name) in 1922, a year before his death. That same year, a fire destroyed the negatives of almost all of his films, even unfinished work about the life of Cuban national hero Antonio Maceo, El Titán de Bronce (The Bronze Titan).

In February 1926, North American Lee De Forest showed his Phono Films System of talking cinema at the National Theater, with the assistance of Cuban President Gerardo Machado, who supported him with a $50,000 credit for a short musical film with national artists. The film presented was Don Juan with John Barrymore and Mary Astor, followed by The Jazz Singer, in 1928, with Al Jolson. But silent film production continued in Cuba, culminating in 1930 with La Virgen de la Caridad, a feature film directed by Ramón Peón, the only film that has been preserved until the present. Ramón Peón became the main personality of film production in Cuba during the next decades.

Cubans made the first talkies in the country in 1932, with equipment brought from the United States. Max Tosquella directed the first documentary Maracas y bongó. The first Cuban full-length talkie was La serpiente roja (The Red Serpent), directed by Ernesto Caparrós. It opened on July 19, 1937. Its subject was taken from a successful radio adventure written by Félix B. Caignet.

In association with other investors, Ramón Peón founded Películas Cubanas S.A. in 1938, with funds amounting to $350,000, including a government subsidy of $60,000. The company was exempted from taxes for 10 years and from custom duties on imported production equipment and supplies for five years. This venture went bankrupt in 1940 after shooting eight films, among them: El romance del palmar (Palm Grove Romance) and Sucedió en La Habana (It Happened in Havana) directed by Peón, Cancionero cubano (Cuban Song Book), Estampas habaneras (Havana Scenes), Mi tío de América (My Uncle from America) and La última melodía (The Last Melody) by Jaime Salvador. Cuban music played a significant role both in the content and the publicity materials of the films. Socio-historical plots practically disappeared in favor of entertainment and trivial matters.

Also in 1938, the Communist Party founded Cuba Sono Films, producer of documentaries as well as two short fiction films and the Noticiero Periodico Hoy, a newsreel. This company ceased to exist in 1948. Most of its films have been lost. Three Soviet films had a run in Cuba, under the auspices of the party: The Battleship Potemkin (1927), The End of Saint Petersburg and The New Babylon (1930). In 1941, 19 Soviet films were banned by the Film Review Commission (La Comisión Revisora de Películas), including Potemkin, Alexandre Nevski, Peter, the Great and The Ten Days that Shook the World. The Communist Party later was able to create a film distribution company, Blue Ribbon Films, which operated until the end of the Second World War. By that time only North American films were being distributed through first-run movie theaters, and Mexican and Argentinean films were shown in neighborhood movie theaters. Commercial agreements had significantly reduced tariffs on these products.

In 1942, during World War II, Soviet films were allowed to be shown while the Spanish film distributor company CIFESA, S.A. was blacklisted by the United States (and Cuba) because of its collaboration with fascist

countries. 

In 1943, the University film club (Filmoteca) was created under the direction of José Manuel Valdés Rodríguez. The first film acquired was the classic Alexandre Nevski. Victor Fleming's Gone with the Wind was also shown. These were the times of the filming of El romance del palmar and Embrujo antillano (Antilles Spell, 1941), a co-production with Mexico. Also Weekend in Havana, with Alice Faye, made its début in Havana and the Mexican singer-actor Tito Guizar was mobbed by his fans.

In the 1940s, two of Havana's most beautiful movie theaters were built: the América, artdeco in style, in 1941, and the Wagner (today called the Yara) with 1,650 orchestra seats at the Radiocentro Building in 1947. The America opened with All This and Heaven Too, starring Bette Davis and Charles Boyer. Juan Orol, a Mexican director, produced his first Cuban film, Siboney (1939) and discovered several "stars" who went on to successful careers in Mexican cinema: the actresses, rumberas cubanas (rumba dancers) Rosa Carmina, Maria Antonieta Pons, Blanquita Amaro and Mary Esquivel. Louis B. Mayer and George L. Schaefer, from RKO Radio Pictures, and Spyros Skouras, were some of the important Hollywood executives who visited Havana during these years. The Cuban films of the day were Dos cubanos en la guerra (Iwo Cubans in the War), starring popular actors Alberto Garrido and Federico Pineiro, with a script by Carlos Robreño (1942), Hitler soy yo (Hitler I Am), directed by Manolo Alonso (1944), and the first full-length film made in Santiago de Cuba: S.O.A. (Sin otro apellido, or Without Another Last Name). All of them, like most of the film productions of this period, were considered mediocre, as well as the Cuban-Argentinean co-production A La Habana me voy (Going to Havana) starring Blanquita Amaro. During 1950-1951, with not much more public acceptance, the films Cecilia Valdés, Idolo de multitudes (Crowd's Idol), Paraíso encontrado (Paradise Found), Escuela de mujeres (Women's School) and Música, mujeres y piratas (Music, Ladies and Pirates) had their run.

The tireless José Manuel Rodriguez, insulted by the prevailing bad taste, began and supervised a cinematographic program at the University of Havana, during summer sessions from 1942 to 1957.

Newsreel productions were more systematic and competent during the 1940s and the 1950s under the influence of two main players: Manolo Alonso, who almost monopolized both production and distribution of newsreels and, in the 1950s, Eduardo "Guayo" Hernández. Other newsreel companies came and went throughout these decades. One successful venture was by an editor of the "Noticiero Royal News-R.H.C.-E1 País-Cadena Azul," Luis R. Molina, who went to the United States to film the 1941 World Series and show the games in Havana just 20 hours after they had taken place.

At the end of March 1942, Manolo Alonso began producing the Noticiero Nacional (National Newsreel), which shortly after was shown in 72 movie theaters in Havana and in 178 movie houses in the rest of the country. Alonso quickly showed himself to be a capable and unscrupulous impresario. Blank film, which came from the United States, was scarce because of the war, but Alonso managed to get President Grau San Martin to solicit reels in order to film President Franklin D. Roosevelt's funeral, film that was to be shared equally with Molina, but Alonso, acting in collusion with the governmental agency in charge of film distribution, received a larger lot. In 1947, he managed to buy Royal News, his main rival, and he also acquired a production house for the purpose of transforming it into the national film studios. In 1950 he produced the full-length film Siete muertes a plazo fijo (Seven Death at Fixed Installments) and in 1953 Casta de robles (Lineage of Oaks).

A network of movie theaters, government budgets and subsidies for commercial and political propaganda supported his newsreel. In 1946 he received from President Grau San Martin 100,000 pesos for his Cuban cinema project and, in 1951, 400,000 pesos from several designated funds from the national lottery. Then, a year later, he reported he had invested 540,000 pesos but that the film studios were still not completed and the equipment belonged to him. The State valued the unfinished project at 240,000 pesos and verified that 250,000 pesos had evaporated.

Moving on from Alonso's project, the government created the Executive Commission for the Movie Industry (Comisión Ejecutiva para la Industria Cinematográfica), and appointed Ramón Peón as the administrator. He was funded to make such films as Sandra, la mujer de fuego (Sandra, the Woman of Fire), Más fuerte que el amor (Stronger than Love) and Angeles de la calle (Street Angels). This project to create a national cinematographic industry also failed.

Then, in 1954, Guayo Hernández founded the newsreel company Noticuba, devoted to the production of documentary films to order, most of them government propaganda. Some of them made it to movie houses in Miami, Key West and Tampa. In 1958, Guayo prepared a report on Fidel Castro's Rebel Army, entitled Sierra Maestra. It was shown in 1959, the re-edition retitled From Tyranny to Liberty (De la tiranía a la libertad).

The 1950s began with the creation of an institution of great importance for Cuban culture, including its cinema: the Sociedad Cultural Nuestro Tiempo (Our Times Cultural Society) a precursor of today's Cinemateca de Cuba. It promoted debates and conferences about cinema, and published a bulletin (Boletín de Cine). In January 1955, the documentary El Megano, made by some youngsters from Our Times and directed by Julio García Espinosa, was shown at the University of Havana, where José Manuel Rodríguez was successfully presenting the best films and promoting cinema discussions. The day after the opening night, Dictator Fulgencio Batista's oppressive forces seized one of the negatives of El Mégano, for it documented and denounced the miserable living conditions of the Cuban carboneros or coalworkers in the Ciénaga de Zapata region. After the victory of the Revolution such copy was found at the offices of the Military Inteligence Service (SIM) — a repressive institution of the dictatorship.

The first Cuban full-length fiction film in color, El tesoro de la Isla de Pinos (The Treasure of the Isle of Pines) was also made in the mid-1950s, in co-production with Mexico. El cabo de San Antonio or Jocuma had to be shown clandestinely because it denounced the living conditions of peasants in the Cuban countryside. The film was not accepted by any theater and brought about the destruction of the facilities of its producer Mini Color S.A.

But the event that created the greatest indignation was linked to the use in cinema of the image of José Martí, the Apostle of the Cuban independence in the nineteenth century. There was ample background for such controversy. In 1942, the film La que se murió de amor (The One Who Died of Love), directed by Jean Angelo, was forbidden by the Film Review Commission, or Comisión Revisora de Películas, for not properly respecting the image of such a highly regarded figure. Its showing was finally authorized in 1945 under the title of Martí en Guatemala. Since the centennial of José Martí's birth was commemorated in 1953, a "National Commission for José Martí's Centennial" was created. The State cinematographic company Antillas S.A. was charged with the production of films on Martí. Short films such as Los zapaticos de Rosa, Martí, mentor de juventudes and Siguiendo la ruta de Martí were made. A feature film on Martí's life entitled La rosa blanca, co-produced with Mexico under the direction of recognized filmmaker Emilio (Indio) Fernández, had its own problems. It did not take long to discover that part of the funds set aside for its production had disappeared, while criticism claiming mistreatment of Marti's image added to the problem. It opened on July 11, 1954, at the Radiocentro movie theater (formerly Wagner). That same year the Film Department of the CMO radio and television network was filming La leyenda del bandido (The Bandit Legend) as part of the television serial Humo del recuerdo.

This period ended with the making of the documentary Struggle for Freedom in the Cuban Jungle by North American journalist Bob Taber. It was broadcast on American television in December 1957, discounting previous reports about Fidel Castro's death and the failure of the armed struggle against dictator Batista.

In 1958, there were 30 cinematographic circuits in Cuba with 170 movie theaters and a capacity for 167,081 orchestra seats. By then, the spectacular movie theater Blanquita (today called Karl Marx) had been built in Havana with a capacity for 6,730.

In matters of culture, cinema was among the first issues addressed by the recently established Government in January 1959. That same month a cinema section was created within the Rebel Army's Direction of Culture, the beginning of the Cuban Film Institute or ICAIC, Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográfica, whose founders included members of Nuestro Tiempo, contributors to making of El Mégano, such as Alfredo Guevara, Julio García Espinosa, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Jorge Haydú and José Massip. It was with them and the ICAIC that the third stage of the history of Cuban cinema began, which has lasted up to the present.

In his inaugural speech, Alfredo Guevara, the First President of ICAIC, stated, contrasting the new project with previous ventures: There is no relation between the uses of cinematographic technical means at the service of typical propaganda or commercial objectives and the cultural process that has given rise to the new Cuban cinema.

In their first works, ICAIC's directors were influenced by Italian Neo-Realism, and by other important contemporary trends, but it did not take them long to find their own identity, artistic and conceptual. Their fiction productions had their beginnings in the film Manuela (1966). By this time, Cuban documentaries had already been internationally recognized as the "Cuban school of documentary films" whose achievements included the production of newsreels and children's cinema. After a mere 20 years, ICAIC, a self-financed institution, had obtained net profits of 283 million pesos (2.3 million in hard currency) in addition to 10 million from the domestic market.

Three documentaries mark the beginning of ICAIC's production: Gutiérrez Alea's Esta tierra nuestra (This Land of Ours) and García Espinosa's La vivienda (The Dwelling) and Sexto aniversario (Sixth Anniversary). In April 1959, a month after ICAIC's founding, they started shooting the English film Our Man in Havana with a script by Graham Greene and performances by Alec Guinness and Maureen O'Hara. Otello Martini and Arturo Zavattini arrived from Italy in order to produce Historias o cuentos de la Revolución (Histories or Short Stories about the Revolution), while Cesare Zavattini was writing the script for El joven rebelde (The Young Rebel) with García Espinosa. International collaboration with ICAIC has since been a constant source of wonderful projects. In 1960, Manuel Octavio Gómez directed El agua (Water), ICAIC's first didactic film, and Gutiérrez Alea began one of the great projects of Cuban cinema, Historias de la Revolución, with Julio García Espinosa's Cuba baila and Jesús de Armas' El maná, ICAIC's first cartoon. The Cinemateca de Cuba (Cuban Film Archives) was established, under the direction of Héctor García Mesa. After his death in 1982, Reynaldo González, a journalist and novelist, took over. In June of that same year, ICAIC's first edition of the Noticiero ICAIC Latino-americano (ICAIC's Latin American Newsreel), made by the great documentary filmmaker Santiago Alvarez, made its debut, and the first issue of the journal Cine Cubano, directed by Alfredo Guevara, appeared.

The rising interest on Cuba promoted new projects and collaborations, such as: Cuba, pueblo armado (Cuba, An Armed People) and Carnet de viaje (Travel Document) by the Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens; Alba de Cuba (Cuban Dawn) and Lámpara azul (Blue Lamp) by the Soviet director Roman Karmen and Arriba el campesino (Up with the Peasants) and Al compás de Cuba (In Time with Cuba) by the Italian director Mario Gallo. In turn, Cuban filmmakers Gutiérrez Alea and Santiago Alvarez, using material taken from the ICAIC newsreels about the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, made Muerte al invasor (Death to the Invader), a film where these Cuban directors offered, for the first time, the results of their work as war correspondents. The film P.M., by Sabá Cabrera Infante and Orlando Jiménez Leal, led to a national controversy after it was presented on television, and was banned because it was considered "harmful to the interests of the Cuban people and its Revolution."

By means of the process of nationalization of cinematographic enterprises, which lasted until 1965, ICAIC obtained, expanded and improved the film at the former Biltmore (Cubanacán), and new ones were created for Cuban television (1962) along with film sections at the Ministry of the Armed Forces (FAR) and the National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (INDER-Instituto Nacional de Deportes, Educación Fisica y Recreación). In collaboration with other institutions and for internal consumption, FAR produced newsreels, documentaries and didactic films, and even serials and full-length fiction films. ICAIC posters reached such quality that they mark a new conception for poster art in Cuba, an art that gained international recognition and awards at Cannes, Paris, Venice, Canada, the United States, Spain, Russia (former Soviet Union), Cuba and Japan. These silkscreens are hanging today in many renowned world galleries and museums. The first of those awards was a Merit Diploma won by the poster for the film Harakiri at Ceylon's International Exhibition of Posters.

Other international collaboration include: Soy Cuba (with the Soviets, 1964); the documentary Saludos cubanos (with French director Agnes Varda, 1963); the medium-length film Ellas (with Danish director Theodor Christensen) and the full-length film El otro Cristóbal (with French director Armand Gatti), the first "Cuban" film entered at the Cannes Film Festival. José Massip's Historia de un ballet (Suite Yoruba) won the First Prize "Paloma de Oro" in the Short-films Festival in Leipzig, in the former German Democratic Republic, a festival where Cuba subsequently won another seven "Palomas de Oro."

Santiago Alvarez won 10 international awards for Cuba with his documentary Cicón (Cyclone). He is recognized as one of the most important documentary producers in the world, particularly for Hanoi, Martes 13 (Hanoi, Tuesday the 13th), filmed in Viet Nam and considered a masterpiece in its genre. Another excellent work of Cuban filmmaking, in war reporting, was the documentary Medina Boe by José Massip (1967). It was shot in former Portuguese Guinea and was the beginning of Cuban film production on the African continent.

The 1960s are considered the golden decade of ICAIC's film production, for some of its principal films, the professional promotion of its directors and technicians, and the education and expansion of a receptive and critical public. Other films of great importance in this decade are Octavio Cortázar's documentary Por primera vez (For the First Time) also a winner of a "Paloma de Oro" award in Leipzig; Garcia Espinosa's Aventuras de Juan Quin Quin (Juan Quin Quin's Adventures), Gutiérrez Alea's Memorias del subdesarrollo (Memories of Underdevelopment) and Lucia by Humberto Solás. The latter two films are considered classics of the Latin American cinema. Other excellent works are: Manuel Octavio Gómez's La primera carga al machete (The First Charge of the Machete), Jorge Fraga's La odisea del General José (General José's Odyssey), the documentaries Hombres de mal tiempo by Alejandro Saderman, 1868-1968 by Bernabé Hernández and Médicos mambises (Mambí Doctors) by Santiago Villafuerte. With these films, historical cinema reached its maturity in Cuba.

Seminars on the universal history of the cinema were established at the University of Havana's Faculty of Arts, with particular emphasis on Cuban cinema. At the end of the decade, ICAIC's Sound Experimentation Group (Grupo de Experimentación Sonora del ICAIC) was founded under the direction of Leo Brouwer, guitar player, composer and conductor, for the purpose of composing music for ICAIC's films and to contribute to the enrichment of the Cuban popular musical tradition. The group became the founding core of the movement known as the "New Ballad" (Nueva Trova) where Pablo Milanés, Silvio Rodriguez, Noel Nicola, Sergio Vitier and Manuel Valera, among others, started their careers. Soon after, Cuban television organized film-debates and other programs devoted to film education.

This fast "boom" in cinematographic production faltered by the end of the decade, along with the loss of ICAIC's autonomy between 1975 and 1980. The policies carried out by the National Council of Culture were not sympathetic to the freedom of initiative and production that ICAIC had enjoyed since its founding.

In 1975, Enrique Pineda Barnet made his film Mella and the documentary El primer delegado (The First Delegate) — the first in color—and in 1979 Pastor Vega directed Retrato de Teresa (Portrait of Teresa), highly praised by both critics and audiences. But what gives a distinctive character to the decade is the production of cartoons. In 1974, Juan Padrón took his very popular character Elpidio Valdés to the screen and a full-length cartoon feature El prestidigitador (The Conjurer) was also filmed.

Cuban cinema continued to win awards at film festivals as well as in other international events, especially for the film Memorias del subdesarrollo. The New York Times selected it as one of the year's 10 best films for 1973. In the United States Memorias received the Rosenthal Award, awarded by film critics, and the Charles Chaplin Award, selected by the New York Young Critics Group. Memorias also placed in a survey taken by the Canadian magazine Take One, in which critics from Canada, the United States and Europe selected the best Third World films for the years 1968 to 1978. Solás' Lucia placed fourth in the same survey. Both films were also honored in 1981 at Huelva's Iberian-American Film Festival as among the 10 best Iberian-American films of all times according to a survey of film critics from Latin America, Spain and Portugal. In 1985 Memorias del subdesarrollo won the 88th place in a survey taken by the International Federation of Club-Cinemas that presented the history of cinema in 150 films. In 1986 it took third place in a survey taken by the North American magazine Cineaste to select the 10 best political films, worldwide, made between 1967 and 1987.

In December 1979, the First New Latin-American Film Festival (Nuevo Cine Latino-americano) was held in Havana for the purpose of holding regular meetings among filmmakers from Latin America and the Caribbean, promoting the affirmation of their national identities, and defending their national values. The Festival, held every year since, awards the Coral prizes and consists of seminars, exhibits, conferences and retrospectives. With the purpose of securing wide distribution, promotion and sales worldwide, MECLA (Mercado del Cine Latino-americano — or Latin American Film Market) was created to hold concurrent activities during the Festival. In 1986, the Festival agreed to the incorporation of radio and television nominees in the competition for the Corals.

During the 1980s, new directors joined a newly autonomous ICAIC, revived with the development and consolidation of satirical films in a context of social criticism. Production increased from three full-length fiction films, 35 documentaries and seven cartoons in the 1970s, to six or eight full-length fiction films (with the inclusion of co-productions), more than 40 documentaries and nine cartoons in the 1980s. The weekly newsreel production was maintained, adding an original style and innovative mode of reporting, a legacy of Santiago Alvarez, its main promoter and creator.

In 1982, the début of Cecilia, Humberto Solás' version of the nineteenth-century novel Cecilia Valdés by Cirilo Villaverde, brought about new controversy and debate on Cuban cultural policy and ICAIC's projects since the film, a Hispanic-Cuban co-production, became ICAIC's most expensive film ever. In October 1982, Alfredo Guevara was replaced by Julio García Espinosa as ICAIC's director: In 1983, Alsino y el condor (Alsino and the Condor), another coproduction directed by Chilean Miguel Littin, received an Oscar nomination.

Another initiative that had international repercussions was the 1984 founding in Havana, of the Latin American Committee for the Promotion of Film Clubs (Comité Gestor de Cine-Clubs de América Latina), under the direction of Gabriel García Márquez, the Colombian Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature. Its mission was to encourage film production, distribution and presentation in Latin America. It also aimed to foment and support research, teaching, preservation, archival project and the diffusion of the peoples patrimony in film. During these years, ICAIC's group of companies (Unión de Empresas ICAIC) included: ICAIC itself, the Technical Division for Film Presentations, a Division for Distribution of National Films, a Division for Distribution of International Films, the Cinemateca (film archives) and the Center for Cinematographic Information.

In 1986 the "International School of Cinema and Television" (EICTV) was inaugurated in the town of San Antonio de los Baños, under the direction of Argentinean filmmaker Fernando Birri. It was called "Escuela de Tres Mundos" (Three Worlds School) because of its interest in the cinematographic training and education of young people from Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa and Asia. And finally, in September 1988, the Department of Radio, Cinema and Television was created within the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA, Higher Institute of the Arts), linked to the Ministry of Higher Education, for the purpose of advanced and highly professional training for mass media workers, on subjects such as management, photography, editing, sound and production.

The 1990s began with a retrospective of the Cuban cinema in Paris, at the Centre Georges Pompidou. At the time, it became the most complete retrospective abroad, consisting of posters, photographs, several publications and the book Le Cinema Cubain written by Cuban specialists. ICAIC had won 539 awards; 153 of them were first prizes.

By beginning a policy of decentralization, in spite of the fall of the European Socialist bloc and Cuba's precarious economic conditions during the so called "special period," ICAIC's film production continued, thanks to a policy of greater autonomy, video productions, co-productions and service contracts with foreign film-makers.

To this last decade belongs Tomas Gutiérrez Alea's 1993 film Fresa y chocolate Strawberry and Chocolate, co-directed by Juan Carlos Tabío. Its extraordinary international success made it an Oscar nominee as the best foreign film in 1995.

A recurrent theme, present in some films of that decade, is emigration, its causes or motivations and its traumatic effects, recalling its most dramatic moments during the 1994 "Rafters Crisis." Themes of emigration were treated by: Amor vertical (Arturo Sotto, 1997); La ola Enrique Alvarez, (1995); Madagascar (Fernando Pérez., 1994) and La vida es silbar (also by Pérez, 1998). This topic, of inevitable interest to Cuban film production, had its roots in Los sobrevivientes by Gutiérrez Alea (1978) and Alicia en el pueblo de maravillas by Daniel Díaz (1990). It is also present in Lista de espera by Juan Carlos Tabío (2000).

As may be observed, based on its productions, Cuban cinematography has been an eloquent expression of its national history, with far-reaching recognition and all the merit for ICAIC, made possible by the revolutionary victory on January 1, 1959. Having an efficient industry firmly established, a rich experience accumulated by its directors and technical experts, as well as teaching centers, an intellectual treasure for the professional training of new generations, the future of Cuban cinema seems secured. The law that created ICAIC on March 24, 1959 stated that cinema is "the most powerful and suggestive means of artistic expression and broadcasting and the broadest vehicle for educating and popularizing ideas."

Now that the most sophisticated means of human communication is proliferating, the above words, recalled at the beginning of the third millennium of our age, acquire their most far-reaching meaning.