Civil Society, Development & Aid, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

CUBA: Keeping the Festival Magic Alive

Dalia Acosta

GIBARA, Cuba, Apr 27 2010 (IPS) - As the cinema lights switched off, the groups of painters, impromptu filmmakers and craftspeople who filled the parks and plazas of this eastern Cuban town over the past week began to drift away. The musicians who played every night till dawn are gone, and so are the vendors of prawn cocktails, crabmeat pies and roast suckling pig.

The mobile stages are being removed, and the young people who travelled hundreds of kilometres from their homes to come here, their pockets nearly empty but digital camera in hand, willing to sleep for one, two or three hours a night on a park bench or at the first house that would take them in, are heading back.

“I’m in love with this town,” Alejandro Menéndez, a student at the Cuban Higher Institute of Art (ISA) in Havana, told IPS. “I was so surprised by the good nature of the people, who took me into their homes. I don’t know whether I’m dizzy or out of focus.”

Menéndez made his own way to Gibara for the Eighth International Low-Budget Film Festival, and wound up handing over his photos for use in the festival diary. “I don’t want to leave,” he said, not knowing that he was repeating the feelings expressed by so many filmmakers, visual artists, actors, musicians, art critics and journalists who over the last eight years have spent a week in April in Gibara.

Once again the festival has come to an end. Created by the late Cuban filmmaker Humberto Solás (1942-2008), who dreamed of changing life in this sea port town in eastern Cuba, its departure marks the return of normal routines, as if year after year the festival can only be what it is: a momentary break by the wayside.

“The question is what goes on in Gibara when the festival is no longer here: what energy does the festival leave behind, in terms of keeping alive the dynamics that are obviously heightened during the film festival?” Rigoberto Fabelo, head of the Centre for Exchange and Reference on Community Initiatives (CIERIC), remarked to IPS.


A group of experts from CIERIC, a not-for-profit association, came to Gibara to investigate these basic questions. They plan to make an initial assessment of the impact of the festival on the community, and talk to local authorities in order to identify needs and possible social and cultural projects.

“Any event of this kind, if we want it to be sustainable and have an impact for permanent cultural change in a community, needs to be closely linked to community participation and to what it can contribute in terms of new aesthetic references, but also in terms of enterprise and activity,” Fabelo said.

Local observers were also hoping that the festival would contribute to the development of the tourism industry and would attract investment to preserve the heritage of the town, which was declared a national monument in 2004. Eight years later, Gibara still lacks a hotel, and its theatre, founded in 1889, is closed pending restoration.

“Life changes completely when the festival starts, and then again when it ends. All the movement and festive spirit, all the wonderful things constantly happening in the park, the cinema, the Cultural Centre and right out on the streets, disappear,” Bárbara López, an expert at the Gibara Natural History Museum, told IPS.

López has been involved with Solás’ cultural project ever since its origins in 2003, and she is a member of its board of directors. She says that after the week of the festival, the town, founded in 1817, “reverts to being a warm, quiet, peaceful village where everything follows a routine at work and at home, and there is just the weekend to look forward to, if in fact there is something on.

“We who live here in Gibara should do something to keep up the momentum after the actual festival. We have potential, and the local Cultural Centre leaders could do more, for instance, working with children,” she said.

Five girls and five boys from a Gibara primary school took part this year in a creative workshop to tape a video for children in the nearby Caribbean nation of Haiti, which was devastated by an earthquake Jan. 12. “We have to keep smiling,” said Jorge Reyes, one of the participants in the project, an idea that arose from the people of Gibara, who two years ago suffered the ravages of a major hurricane.

The children’s workshop, carried out with support from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), was part of the festival programme Apr. 19-25 that included thematic forums, film screenings, plays, concerts and visual arts exhibitions.

“One achievement this year has been the high level of public participation. The people of Gibara have taken part in all the activities, even the thematic forums, to a much greater extent than in previous years,” Elía Solás, who was his brother Humberto’s right hand man throughout the process of fulfilling his dream in Gibara, told IPS.

CIERIC sources say that it is precisely this relationship between the townspeople and the festival that could form the basis for the design and implementation of a strategy of connecting different local actors, which could give rise to “longer-lasting, more sustainable” projects to foment social and cultural change.

“It’s a great opportunity for the municipal government, for local residents, for Gibara itself and for its strategic development. But it will be an opportunity only as long as it’s seen not only from the viewpoint of what happens on the big screen, but also as what continues to happen afterward,” said Fabelo.

 
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