The Havana Film Festival New York 2021 is at Village East Cinema in Manhattan’s East Village, Friday-Thursday, November 5-11, 2021. hffny.com
🇨🇺🇪🇸|🇨🇦🇬🇹🇭🇳🇲🇽🇺🇸|🇦🇷🇨🇱🇨🇴🇵🇪🇻🇪|🇬🇷🇬🇧
Latin cinema often has an emotional depth that you rarely find in Hollywood anymore. Most films have English subtitles.
The opening and closing night parties are epic. There are usually some Cuban celebrities in attendance.
Havana Film Festival New York 2021 Opening Night
The opening night film is Spanish director Fernando Trueba’s Colombian film “El Olvido Que Seremos” (Memories of My Father or Forgotten We’ll Be). It was a Cannes Film Festival 2020 selection and Colombia’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards of 2021. Trueba is a master of the touching moment.
The story is based on the memoir by Colombian novelist Héctor Abad Faciolince. It’s the story of his father Héctor Abad Gómez, MD, a doctor, teacher and human rights activist who founded the Colombian National School of Public Health. Faciolince lost his father to paramilitaries in 1980s Colombia.
Colombia has lived through the longest civil war in the Americas. Regular people were caught in the middle of senseless violence between the Colombian government, left-wing rebels, right-wing paramilitaries, narcos, and the US government. As usual, only the people suffer and it takes generations to recover from such trauma. Cinema is one of the ways a country heals.
Fernando Trueba is a Spanish film critic who became an Academy Award-winning director. His “Belle Époque” (1994) won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. “La niña de tus ojos” (The Girl of Your Dreams, 1998) won seven Goya Awards (the Spanish Oscars).
His animated romance “Chico and Rita” (2010) won several awards including an Oscar nomination. It’s a very Cuban story. Life takes two young lovers in Havana out into the world in very different directions. If you ever truly loved someone, but life got in the way, this film will break your heart again, but may also give you hope that true love is eternal.
Trueba may be best known to New Yorkers for his Latin Jazz documentary “Calle 54” filmed at Sony Music Studios on 54th St. It features many Latin Jazz legends. The film’s most touching moment is when Bebo Valdés meets his son Chucho Valdés in the studio. Bebo was the Tropicana’s music director for years, but left after the Revolution. We don’t know, but it looks like this was the first time they met since then. They are awkward at first, but then have the most beautiful conversation on two grand pianos. Their embrace at the end is clear. Father and son have reconciled. The Latin family is intact. That embrace is one of the most touching moments in cinema. That is Fernando Trueba.
The Opening Night Party features a performance by hot Cuban pianist Dayramir González. González is a Chucho Valdés protegé. He swings hard and plays piano like he is possessed. He’s fun to watch and these parties are really fun.
Opening night is co-presented by NYU King Juan Carlos Center.
Centerpiece
The centerpiece selection is “A Media Voz” (In a Whisper) by Heidi Hassan Patricia Pérez.
This is the story of two childhood best friends who are filmmakers in the Cuban Diaspora, trying to find themselves and each other.
American musician David Byrne famously said that, “you may find yourself in another part of the world.” Many Cubans do, but being in diaspora is hard because you leave some of yourself behind, you’re not the same person any more, and the locals always see you as an outsider.
There is an expression in Spanish, “la media naranja.” It translates as half an orange, but it means lovers are two halves of one thing. If you ever meet your media naranja, you will know, and if you are separated, you will never stop remembering your other half.
Closing Night
Closing night is the awards ceremony and one more great film.
The closing night film is “Maixabel” (2021) by Spanish Director Iciar Bollaín. It’s based on the true story of Maixabel Lasa who lost her politician husband to Basque ETA terrorists. A decade later, one of her husbands assassins asks her to come meet him in jail.
Can you imagine the intensity of that meeting and the buildup to it? You would relive all the pain again. What courage it would take from both parties. You can’t change the past, but you can change how you feel about it.
Closing night is co-presented by NYU King Juan Carlos Center.
The Latin World Makes All Kinds of Films
These are some of the categories of films that you will find at the Havana Film Festival New York 2021:
- LGBTQIA+ Narratives
- Desarraigo Y Esperanza
- Las Mejores Familias
- Nudo Mixteco
- Women’s Voices
- El Perro Que No Calla
- Nudo Mixteco
- Desarraigo y Esperanza
- A Media Voz
- La Mami
- Horror & Suspense
- ¿Eres Tú, Papá?
- Dante
- Short Films
- Dante
- Vestiphobia: Cuba
- Flying Pigeon
- Las Polacas
- El Cine Libertario
- The Angel’s Cave
- Lesson #4
- Indigenous Stories
- Desarraigo y Esperanza
- Nudo Mixteco
- 1991
- Music and Movement
- Organo
- Giselle
- Cuban Dancer
- Mambo Man
- Literature in Film
- Leonardo Padura
- Latin Noir
- Natalia
Cine Payret is the biggest cinema in Cuba and one of the main venues of the Havana Film Festival New York’s sister festival: Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano, or the Habana Film Festival.
