Havana celebrates its 497 birthday

HAVANA, Cuba, Nov 16 (acn) Havana, acknowledged this year as Wonder City of the Modern World, is celebrating its 497 birthday with a large cultural agenda.
Amidst a growing wave of international visitors, Havana citizens focus on an approach to their city´s roots and identity as it initially was called San Cristobal de La Habana and part of an ancient colonial system of villas in the Caribbean.
A cultural forum on the agenda will be dedicated to the 135th birthday of Cuba ethnologist Fernando Ortiz and to the 50th anniversary of the first edition of the novel entitled Biography of a Runaway Slave, written by also ethnologist Miguel Barnet, 1994 National Literature Prize.
A photo contest will involve photographers from Germany, Brazil, Colombia, Spain, Finland, France and Cuba, while a film showcase will run Cuban documentaries made before the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution and others filmed after that historic date.
Cuban music is also present on the cultural agenda to welcome the 497th Havana birthday with popular music bands which have left their imprint on Cuban culture