Lucia Awards inaugurate international film festival in Cuba

 

HOLGUÍN, Cuba, Apr 16 (ACN) The 19th International Poor Cinema Festival of Gibara opened on Tuesday with the presentation of the 2025 Honorary Lucia Award to the Cuban actress and National Theater and Television Award winner Veronica Lynn, the critic and researcher Luciano Castillo, and the Casa Gitana project.

In his opening words, Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC) director Alexis Triana remarked the importance that the Festival should be organized in Gibara every year to pick up on [Cuban late filmmaker] Humberto Solás’s work and, above all else, protect the idea of building a better country, where Gibara as a symbol of an utopia that will not give up.

“That this Festival takes place despite the current difficulties is proof of this country’s will and cultural policy and shows that, no matter what happens, we will never relinquish our sense of artistic creativeness”, he stressed.

The opening gala paid tribute to Edesio Alejandro, recently deceased and creator of soundtracks for films such as Clandestinos (1987), Hello Hemingway (1990) and Madagascar (1994) and to the late movie director Jorge Luis Sánchez, who made films like El Benny (2006) and Buscando a Casal (2020).

The day’s program also featured the premiere of Cuban director Marcos Díaz Sosa’s film Fenómenos Naturales and the presentation of the juries, whose members include the actress Jacqueline Arenal (Cuba), the director Patricia Ramos, the producer Tarik El Idrissi (Morocco), the makeup artist Saraï Fiszel (France) and the Yamandú Testa (Uruguay).

Likewise, there was a poster exhibition and the panel "Rewriting stories: gender and cinema today", attended by the Swiss filmmaker and screenwriter Laura Cazador and the attaché for Cultural, Economic and Political Affairs of the Swiss Embassy in Cuba, Febe Tognina, among other figures.
The International Poor Cinema Festival of Gibara is intended to protect and promote the development of low-income but highly aesthetical films to establish itself as a cinematographic reference for Cuba and the world.