Inauguration of the INSTAR Film Festival

The event will begin with a talk by the Cuban critic and journalist Dean Luis Reyes, entitled “Las fotos del derrumbe: el cine cubano y la incertidumbre” (Photos of the collapse: Cuban cinema and uncertainty). What remains of Cuban cinema in the midst of the terminal crisis in the island’s welfare state and socialist project? Is there any longer such a thing as national cinema, as in the times of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC)? From what basis does this cinema speak today? Who’s it speaking for? What paths does it expect to take?

After the talk, we’ll have the opportunity to watch the documentary Option Zero by Marcel Beltrán, selected by several international festivals. “Armed only with mobile phones to bear witness to their journey, hundreds of Cubans documented their trek from Colombia to Panama in the hope of entering the United States. Most sold all their possessions to pay for the journey and crossed the treacherous lands of the Darien Gap, enduring harsh conditions and dodging human and drug traffickers, only to end up in a new kind of nightmare. Cuban director Marcel Beltrán has masterfully assembled over a hundred hours of mobile phone footage to show their perilous journey and first-hand accounts”. (Heather Haynes, Hot Docs 2021)

Option Zero (La opción cero), Marcel Beltrán, Cuba-Brazil-Colombia, 2020, 80’, English-subtitled version

The INSTAR Film Festival is an annual event organised by the Hannah Arendt Institute of Artivism (INSTAR), a collective founded and run by Cuban artist Tania Bruguera. The festival focuses particularly on audiovisuals that take risks, in both aesthetic and thematic terms, as well as hybrid pieces that explore new paths in filmmaking.

This fourth festival will take place during the week of 4-10th December 2023 in various venues around the world, especially in cities with a large presence of Cuban emigrants: Barcelona, Paris, Miami, New York, Mexico City, Buenos Aires and São Paulo. This year’s festival focuses on the transnational nature of the new Cuban cinema, as well as its growing dialogue with diverse cinematographies. After the inaugural event at the CCCB, the festival’s activities will continue in Barcelona with screenings at the Zumzeig cinema between the 5th and 8th of December.