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• 12 / 05 / 2006

The 28th edition of the New Latin American Cinema Festival opens in Havana on Tuesday with over a dozen Havana theaters showing hundreds of fiction, documentary, animated and short films through December 15.

Since its beginning in 1979, the festival has had as a prime objective to screen films that reaffirm and enrich Latin American and Caribbean cultural identity.

In the fiction competition, Argentina and Brazil have five films each. From Argentina: Cronica de una fuga, directed by Israel Adrian Caetano; Derecho de familia, by Daniel Burman; El camino de San Diego by Carlos Sorín; El custodio, by Rodrigo Moreno; and Nacido y criado, de Pablo Trapero, the last three being co-productions with other countries.

The five Brazilian feature fiction films are: Antonia, directed by Tata Amaral; Se prohíbe prohibir, by Jorge Duran; El cielo de Suely, by Karim Ainouz; El mas grande amor del mundo, by Carlos Diegues (starring Jose Wilker, who confirmed his presence in Havana); and Los 12 trabajos, from Ricardo Elias.

Other competing films in the fiction category are Padre nuestro and Pecados, by Chileans Rodrigo Sepulveda and Martin Rodriguez; Drama Mex and Cobrador, in God we trust, by the Mexican directors Gerardo Naranjo and Paul Leduc; and Mariposa negra, from Peruvian director Francisco Lombardi.

Cuba has five feature length films competing: Paginas del diario de Mauricio by Manuel Perez and La edad de la peseta, from Pavel Giroud, as well as opera primas El Benny, by Jorge Luis Sanchez, La pared by Alejandro Gil and Mañana by Alejandro Moya.

Parallel showings of films from Germany, Spain, France, Italy and Switzerland will be exhibited in Havana during the New Latin American Cinema Festival including retrospectives by prestigious directors. A novelty this year is a showing of experimental cinema.

El laberinto del fauno from Mexican director Guillermo del Toro opens the cinema feast that will end with Volver by Spanish director Pedro Almodovar.

Source: Granma