News

  • Lucía, a standout film of the festival

    Lucía, a standout film of the festival

    There’s not long to go until we reveal the brilliant programme for this year’s festival. In themeantime, to whet your appetite, we’re delighted to offer a glimpse of one of the highlights in store:Lucía (1968), directed by Humberto Solás.One of the most emblematic works in the history of Cuban cinema, Lucía promises to be a… Read more

  • The preservation of Cuba’s film archives is an urgent race against time

    The preservation of Cuba’s film archives is an urgent race against time

    OVER THE last year more than 15,000 children and teenagers have crowded into Cuban cinemas to see animations featuring Elpidio Valdés, restored with the help of funds raised by the Screen Cuba film festival. Elpidio is a cartoon character created for children in the 1970s by Juan Padrón, who symbolises the fight for Cuban independence… Read more

  • Cinema to the rescue

    Cinema to the rescue

    When Screen Cuba donated funds for the recently restored Clarín Mambí, an early cartoon by Cuba’s godfather of animation Juan Padrón, we could not imagine that the premiere of the restored film would be screened on a bed sheet hung up at an evacuation centre. Yet this is how the José Maceo Vocational School in… Read more

  • Screen Cuba Festival 2025 helps restore short films by Juan Padrón

    Screen Cuba Festival 2025 helps restore short films by Juan Padrón

     Screen Cuban has done it again! The Festival has recently paid £6,700 to the Colombian Film Heritage Foundation as requested by the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC), to support ICAIC’s project to restore many of its important classic films in its archive. Last year we donated £3000, enabling the restoration of two early cartoons about Elpidio… Read more

  • Music Fund for Cuba donates supplies for Cuban film makers

    Music Fund for Cuba donates supplies for Cuban film makers

    Boxes of much needed materials for the Cuban Film Institute are on their way to Havana.  They have been donated by one of Screen Cuba’s sponsors, The Music Fund for Cuba. The charity responded to an appeal by ICAIC’s restoration archive team for specific items which are impossible to source in Cuba thanks to the… Read more

  • Film by Cuban children came to Britain

    Film by Cuban children came to Britain

    Several hundred children greeted the Cuban short Una Aventura de Elpido Valdés by Juan Padrón with plenty of laughs about its slapstick jokes and humorous escapades when it was screened at the Children’s International Film Festival @childrensfilmfestival in Kingston, UK in June. This 1974 animation about a popular anti-colonial hero, loved by Cuban children, was… Read more