Until today, only Lucy, the magnum opus of 1968, was the only film by Humberto Solás favored by the crusade to rescue Cuba’s cinematographic heritage. The vast filmography of one of the top filmmakers of the founding generation of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC), which has such outstanding fiction feature films as Cecilia, a successful man, Age of Enlightenment, Cuba neighborhoodin addition to its documentary pieces, had remained behind in the fight against time and circumstances to save all the valuable material, that audiovisual testimony of national history threatened by the lack of resources and the poor conditions of the film archives.
By seeking international help, the Cuban Cinematheque has recently managed to rescue Memories of underdevelopment and other films by the essential Tomás Gutiérrez Alea (Titón), the Noticieros Icaic Latinoamericano by Santiago Álvarez, the documentaries by Guillén Landrián and In a certain way, by Sara Gómez, among several ongoing projects. Now, it transpires through the X account of Alexis Triana, recently appointed president of Icaic, that Luciano Castillo, the director of the Cuban Cinematheque, has confirmed the proposal to digitize and restore the film Cantata de Chileby Humberto Solás with the participation of the Cinemateca de Chile.
Poster cover of the film.
This good news fills all lovers of Cuban cinema with joy and especially the organizers of the Gibara International Film Festival, created in 2003 by Humberto Solás under the name of the Poor Film Festival, because it expands the legacy of this famous filmmaker. that can be viewed and revalued by current generations of viewers. The enthusiasm is even greater because the 1975 film, Cantata de Chilecontinues today to be one of the most risky and transcendent within the work of Solás and national cinematography in general.
Winner of the 20th. Karlovy Vary Festival, in 1976, and conceived as an evocation of the Iquique massacre, the name given to the savage repression that the Government and the Chilean oligarchy unleashed on a miners’ strike in 1907, had its detractors due to the formal daring decided by Solás to get closer to the historical fact, but he also received praise from a great filmmaker like Julio García Espinosa, who applauded this approach to reality “without falling into the most scandalous pamphlet.”
Solás himself then recognized his daring and said: «I consider it my most corrosive and provocative film. A linguistic adventure free of fears. Avoiding the easy topic of a documentary reconstruction, he chose to move on the limits between reality and fictional recreation, with a display of resources of plastic and literary inspiration, where allegory and symbolism pursued the achievement of an exercise of foreign cinematic freedom. to discursive rhetoric.
This demarcation from the traditional would be expressed by García Espinosa with these words: «There are moments in which the recreated reality and the represented one mix, and then there is no more reality than the aesthetic fact, which results from a more authentic credibility than that which is feigned. reflect the reality of life.
The incorporation of poems and songs by Volodia Teitelboim, Pablo Neruda, Violeta Parra, the participation of prominent Chilean actors (Nelson Villagra, Shenda Román, Eric Heresmann, Roberto Contreras), in addition to the original music composed by Leo Brouwer, the cinematography by Jorge Herrera and the edition by Nelson Rodríguez, were extraordinary contributions for Humberto Solás to achieve with Cantata de Chile one of the most audacious cinematographic endeavors in national film history.
(Taken from Cubacine Facebook profile)
2023-11-29 02:24:22
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