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Accepted Paper:

Jirafas y topos en la misma guarida: changes in contemporary Cuban film  
Dunja Fehimovic

Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses a turning-point in Cuban cinema, establishing a dialogue between the actions of both ICAIC and the ‘Grupo de trabajo’ proposing to reform the Cuban filmmaking industry and two recent Cuban films: Alfredo Ureta’s La guarida del topo (2011) and Kiki Álvarez’s Jirafas (2013).

Paper long abstract:

In May 2013, a group of Cuban filmmakers gathered in Havana to discuss internal proposals for change being formulated within the ICAIC and suggest potential solutions to the problems faced by the industry. The group's Acta de Nacimiento underscores a desire to expand production beyond the state and nation, addressing the troubled legal status of independent filmmakers, and to reestablish links with other Latin American cinemas while reaffirming commitment to ICAIC's historic vision. Their suggestions are inextricable from wider reforms that have taken place in Cuba since 2006, but can also be seen as consequences of predating processes such as the democratisation of film through digital technology, and the longer-standing crisis of the Special Period.

This paper analyses this turning-point in Cuban cinema, establishing parallels between the actions of both ICAIC and the aforementioned 'Grupo de trabajo' in dialogue wtih two recent feature films produced in Cuba: Alfredo Ureta's La guarida del topo (2011) and Kiki Álvarez's Jirafas (2013). Whilst the former is a co-production between ICAIC, ICRT and the filmmakers' own Aurora Productions, the latter has been explicitly identified as an 'independent', 'alternative' project. Both films eloquently express the coexistence of and clashes between different practical and theoretical models of filmmaking in contemporary Cuba. Dwelling in particular on the blurring of the inside/outside divide, these films underscore the difficulties and rewards entailed by an opening up of the film industry that has been underway for a number of years and is arguably only now being confronted head-on.

Panel P02
Cuba today: new developments in a changing country
  Session 1