The 18th Gibara International Film Festival will take place from 6 to 10 August.
After more than 20 years of existence, the results of the Gibara International Film Festival can be seen. The city has not only opened up to the event and to the world, but has also increased its potential in terms of infrastructure and heritage preservation.
This was commented at a press conference by Sergio Benvenuto Solás, director of the Festival, whose eighteenth edition will take place from 6 to 10 August. He also highlighted how the Villa Blanca de los cangrejos becomes a cultural epicentre during these days, and how cultural habits have been transformed and how formative processes and local development are promoted.
However, he stressed that the most important thing – in line with the founding principles of the initiative, promoted by Humberto Solás and set out in the Manifesto of Cine Pobre – is to stimulate creation in the east of the country, and to take advantage of its potential.
For this reason, the Festival, on this occasion with the slogan «Filma el Oriente» (Film the East), will host for the first time the «Factoría del Cine Pobre» (Poor Cinema Factory) meeting, to promote low-budget film projects that have been developed in the eastern provinces and in Camagüey.
Also returning, after the covid-19 pandemic, is the Cine en construcción (Films under Construction) space, aimed at works that aspire to post-production awards.
The enthusiastic participation of the filmmakers supports the objective of the Gibara Fic to be the «ideal platform to make alternative and avant-garde international aesthetic cinema visible». In fact, this will be the largest competition in terms of number of films in recent years.
Some 900 entries were received from some 40 countries, and the official selection is made up of 83 films from 25 nations, in the categories of fiction features and feature-length documentaries, fiction shorts and documentary shorts, and animated films.
As usual, the event will offer, in addition to screenings, theoretical forums, concerts, jazz, trova and electronic music spaces, theatrical performances, children’s programming and visual arts exhibitions. A new feature is the virtual nature of the event, thanks to the live transmission of its spaces.
During the Festival, the Lucía de Honor 2024 Award will be presented to filmmaker Manuel Herrera -who will receive it at the opening gala from Eslinda Núñez-, filmmaker Manuel Pérez Paredes, and photographer Livio Delgado.
The meeting will open with the film Sin papeles (Canada, 2023) by the Chilean-Canadian director and star Cristian de la Cortina, which deals with the phenomenon of migration and its conflicts.
