• THE Havana Film Festival is an annual fiesta where filmmakers, the public and critics converse in order to agree and disagree. The exception of unanimity is in the shared desire to possess the gift of ubiquity. The Official Selection alone comprises 110 films, and the Parallel Section over 170. Omnipresence is an impossibility.

Given that this year, the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC) is celebrating its 50th anniversary, it is only fair to begin with that news. Likewise, the Festival has organized three programs to celebrate the event, announced on its excellent webpage: ICAIC 50 Años - Selección de la Crítica Cubana, with 10 finalists in a survey conducted by the Cuban Film Press Association to select the most relevant films in the history of the island’s cinema; Revolución día a día: Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano, an anthological exhibition of news items from the 1960s; and ICAIC - A propósito de los 50, with four documentaries dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the institute, founded in March 1959 by Alfredo Guevara.

Of the 110 films from 17 countries in the Official Section, 105 are competing for Coral prizes in the categories of feature film (21), debut film (21), short film (15), documentary (24) and animation (24) while the remaining five will be shown in the Out of Competition section (three feature films and two documentaries).

At a Festival press conference, Marta Díaz announced that participating countries include Brazil (with 23 films); Argentina and Mexico, with 21 films each; Chile and Cuba (9 in both cases); Peru (7); Colombia, Uruguay and Venezuela (4 films each) and Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Paraguay, Bolivia, South Africa, Canada, Britain and Spain (with one film each).

Continuing with the competition, the Festival will consider 12 films (11 feature films and one documentary) from Argentina (2), Chile (4), Cuba (1), Ecuador (1), Guatemala (2) and Peru (2) for the Latin American First Copy Post-production Prize – awarded by Alba Cultural – aimed at providing funding for outstanding un-filmed scripts.

Outside of the competition, there will be screenings of more than 170 Latin American feature films, shorts, documentaries and animations in the Festival’s parallel sections: Panorama Latinoamericano (26), La Hora del Corto (35), Sección Informativa Documental (59) and Vanguardias (11).

The films dedicated to Cuba are included in the Hecho en Cuba program with 40 films, Videoteca Contracorriente (5), as well as the series Historias de la Música Cubana, included for the second time with two new offerings.

Another new section is Cine Fantástico y de Horror en Latinoamérica with five films from Argentina, Cuba and Chile.

The Feature Film Competition includes certain titles that have already created a "buzz": El secreto de sus ojos/Juan José Campanella and El niño pez/Lucía Puenzo, from Argentina; Hotel Atlántico/Suzana Amaral, from Brasil; La Nana/Sebastián Silva, from Chile; Los viajes del viento/Ciro Guerra, from Colombia; El premio flaco/Iraida Marlberti, Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti; and Lizanka/Daniel Díaz Torres, from Cuba; Backyard-El traspatio/Carlos Carrera González , from Mexico; La teta asustada/Claudia Llosa, from Perú and Hiroshima/Pablo Stoll, from Uruguay.

The Debut Films competition is always very interesting since these are the names of the future, and for more specialized audiences come the medium and shorts sections and documentaries.

While the Animation contest attracts but does not necessarily arouse the attention that it should of producers, this year there are a larger number of competing films, namely 24. Cuba is competing with 20 años/Bárbaro Joel Ortiz and Tic tac/Alien Ma Alfonso.

During the RoundTable television program, journalist Arleen Rodríguez Derivet interviewed Alfredo Guevara, president of the Havana Film Festival and the latter confirmed that his most ambitious dream is "to create bridges and more bridges".

One of the aspects particularly highlighted by Guevara is the announcement that aside from the usual venues – movie heaters, the Festival headquarters and hotels that accommodate the 1,000-plus participants – film lovers will also have the Pabellón Cuba at their disposition to watch films, buy music and hear specialists participate in panel discussions.

For the president of the Festival, he is most enthusiastic about the Mella-Tina Modotti exhibition to be staged there. "We are organizing from a different concept. We don’t want to show the Mella of the hieratic posters but demonstrate the story of his life and his relationship with Tina exactly as it was: that of two young people who loved each other. "

He described Mella as "a magician: in a short space of time he did everything that he could do. He created the structures of the anti-imperialist struggle, participated in the activities to support Sandino, founded the FEU and the Communist Party, took part in the 1st International…And his life was cut short, but the time that he was here is worth a thousand years," while Tina "became one of the greatest photographers in the history of photography, the first woman to be recognized as a super-photographer, one who gave lessons."

Also mentioned was something that has always characterized this Festival: its poster. This year’s example recreates Simón Bolívar, José Martí and Ernesto Che Guevara and was created by painter Carlos Guzmán (La Habana, 1970). In Alfredo Guevara’s opinion "it is an extraordinary painting" that "will make history for its extraordinary artistic expressivity: part Giotto, part modernist, part abstract…"