As a result of the impact of successive floods and a humid tropical climate, combined with the shortages of crucial materials and equipment due to the US blockade over decades, the film archive at ICAIC in Havana has really suffered and many old 35mm celluloid films are seriously damaged. From the proceeds of the Screen Cuba film festival we were able to finance the restoration of two very important short films from the ICAIC archives. The restoration and digitisation of the films was carried out by the Colombian Film Heritage Foundation, in conjunction with ICAIC. Since March the 35mm negatives have been physically repaired, scanned and a digital version created which has colours, image and sound restored.

The two films are the first animations created by Juan Padrón about the fictional character Elpidio Valdes from 1974: Elpidio Valdés contra el tren militar (Elpidio Valdés versus the military train) and Una aventura de Elpidio Valdés (An Elpidio Valdes Adventure). The films were chosen for their iconic status in Cuban cinema but also in Latin American cinema as the cartoons reached across the continent. Juan Padrón is the godfather of animation in Cuba and one of several in Latin America.

Elpidio Valdés is a famous and much loved cartoon character in Cuban culture, who entertained generations of Cuban children as a symbol of rebellion against colonialism and imperialism. His back story is that he was born in the 1870s, his father was a mambí (guerrilla independence  soldiers who fought against Spain) who died in battle and his mother a peasant. Elpidio joins the mambí liberation army himself in 1895 at the beginning of the Cuban War of Independence, and eventually becomes a colonel. The mambí liberation army was formed of former slaves and Cuban peasants. The character was featured in a children’s comic from 1970 and on film from 1974 until 2003. The cartoons always make fun of the colonial powers.

Alexis Triana, director of ICAIC, on presenting the restored cartoons, recently explained that “in Cuba, comedy is assumed to be the way to face even the most difficult circumstances.”

In an interview before his death in 2020 Juan Padron said “With the creation of Elpidio Valdés I wanted to teach children what the War of Independence was like. Even I didn’t have a clear idea when I started the project. When I wanted to draw a Spanish soldier, I didn’t know what the uniform looked like. I did know how the Comanches and the Seventh Cavalry dressed thanks to movies and comics, but since nothing was made about Cuba, people were completely unaware of it. Now, thanks to Elpidio, Cubans know their own history better.”