Ambrosio Fornet, who has died in Havana at the age of 90, was one of Cuba’s leading revolutionary intellectuals, a literary scholar, essayist and scriptwriter (his best known screenplay was Retrato de Teresa from 1979) who became a dear friend … Continue reading
It would be better to think of Corazon Azul (Blue Heart), the new film by Cuban independent Miguel Coyula, as a quirky political satire for the digital age rather than science fiction. As science fiction, the plot could take place … Continue reading
Saddened by the news this morning of the death of the great Cuban cinematographer Raúl Pérez Ureta. Raulito, as we knew him, was the cameraman on Havana Report, the film I made in 1985 with Holly Aylett on the Havana … Continue reading
[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/474388099[/vimeo] Latin American cinema has lost one of the foundational figures of the radical film movement which flourished fifty years ago, when the two avant-gardes, the aesthetic and the political – were conjoined. Paul Leduc, who died in Mexico City … Continue reading
Reflections on Cuban cinema, in answer to questions from the Havana Glasgow Film Festival, ahead of this year’s festival which opens on November 10th with ‘Cuba: Living Between Hurricanes’. https://hgfilmfest.com/2020/10/19/extraordinary-cuba-an-interview-with-michael-chanan/
In May 2005 I bought a new pocket-sized video camera. The next day I took it with me to try out when I went to visit Kiarostami’s installation, ‘Forest Without Leaves’, at the Victoria & Albert Museum, and as … Continue reading
Very sad to hear of the death in Havana of the pioneer of Cuban cinema, Julio García Espinosa, at the age of 89. One of the founding members of Cuba’s film institute, the ICAIC, of which he was President from … Continue reading
There was something magical about the first time I met Fernando Birri, who celebrated his 90th birthday a few days ago. I had just arrived in Cuba for the first Havana Film Festival in 1979. Checking in to the Hotel … Continue reading
One of the notable features at the inaugural conference of the Radical Film Network in Birmingham last weekend was the mix of generations, from new blood to survivors from the days of the IFA (Independent Filmmakers Association) in the 1970s. Speaking … Continue reading
‘Interrupted Memory’ at Birkbeck Friday 9 January at 6pm One of the interviewees in Interrupted Memory (Memoria interrumpida) (Michael Chanan, 2013, 116mns) recalls being detained in the 1976 coup in Argentina. She was beaten and raped. She began, defensively, to … Continue reading