Habaneceres

Habaneceres is a Cuban documentary film, directed in 2001 by Luis Leonel León. The documentary received awards at film festivals and was selected by the Cuban Film Press Association, affiliated with the International Federation of Film Press (FIPRESCI), as the best film of 2001 in its genre.

Plot

The film's protagonist is Havana, used by the filmmaker in a symbolic way to expose the "material and spiritual crisis of the end of the century and the beginning of the new century" in Cuba, through the testimonies of four Havana creators: playwright Alberto Pedro, filmmaker Fernando Pérez, singer-songwriter Carlos Varela and writer Leonardo Padura, who share nostalgia, regrets and longings for their city and their country; and relate fragments of their experiences, from the happiest to the most terrible moments, such as the Mariel exodus, the Maleconazo and the balseros' crisis, key events in the history of the Cuban Revolution.

Alberto Pedro says "We conduct ourselves inside the deterioration as if we were in Paris. Each one of us has a city inside", while Fernando Pérez warns that "no collective dream, no utopia is realized if it is not formed by the yearnings of each individual", quoting Ho Chi Min: "Never has the dawn been closer than when the night has been darkest."

Production

The documentary, which was the practical part of the graduation thesis of its scriptwriter and director, was shot with a non-professional camera in Havana's neighborhoods and municipalities such as Arroyo Naranjo, El Vedado, La Víbora, Mantilla, Old Havana, Centro Habana, among others, and uses archive images and fragments of the films Madagascar (1994) and Life Is to Whistle by Fernando Pérez to emphasize its intellectual or ideological montage.

Release

Its premiere was in August 2001 at the Riviera movie theater in El Vedado, in the club that singer-songwriter Gerardo Alfonso had at the time. It was later screened at La Rampa, at the closing ceremony of the Cine Plaza National Film and Video Festival, where it won the Grand Documentary Award.

In 2003 it was screened at the Chaplin Hall (Cinemateca de Cuba) during the II Muestra Nacional de Nuevos Realizadores ICAIC, where it won the Jury's Special Prize.

Outside the island, it has been screened at the Casa de América in Madrid, the Instituto de Estudios Hispánicos de Canarias, the Filmoteca Española, the University of La Laguna, and other cultural and academic centers in Spain, Europe, Latin America, and the United States. Miami television stations such as América TeVé (channel 41) and Radio y Televisión Martí have broadcast it preceded by interviews with its director.