The Italian film maker Mario Monicelli, one of the indispensable names of the international cinema, regretted his impossibility to traveling to Cuba due to health reasons to attend the retrospective of his work showed here.

I'm very sorry that due to my age and my health I will not be able to see Cuba , a country I wanted to see for a long time, declared he in a letter to the organizers and the Cuban movie lovers, spread here.

There still is a solidarity and friendly culture and society. Cuba has been for more than 40 years in the peak of the admiration of many people, including myself and my friends.

I would love to see how people live, what they think. The people who know Cuba told me that the people are polite and available. "They have been educated by a very popular and democratic society", he indicated.

Here in Europe and in the West in general that is difficult to find, he added. We live among people who just want to run over, to win, among corrupt people. I wanted to have the vision of something better, more honest.

Monicelli explained that his wish of traveling to the island started after his visa to travel to the USA was denied because he took part in a solidarity demonstration with Cuba in Rome.

That pushed me to go further, to see what was there so tremendous, so prohibited that the US denied me the entry to their territory. Unfortunately I couldn't fulfill it. Lets hope next year, if I'm still in shape, I can go to Cuba, he concluded.

The season with works of the father of the Italian comedies, was opened the 29th of November and included nine of his best documentaries and fictional works. Among the movies was, La rosa del desierto (Desert Rose), his recent film, shoot in 2006, when he was over 91 years old. It was a luxury preview of the Festival of the New Latin American Cinema of Havana that will end the 14th of December.

(PL)