MAXINE PEAKE

Actor

“I am really excited about expanding my knowledge of Cuban cinema. Screen Cuba is the perfect opportunity for me to achieve that goal. I warmly welcome this first UK Festival of Cuban film and l urge anyone with a passion for film to get behind the festival not only to share the wonderful cinematic canon Cuban film has to offer but also because the proceeds from the Festival will go back into Cuban cinema by contributing to the restoration and digitalisation of Cuba’s great classic films.”

TARIQ ALI

Filmmaker, journalist, writer

“Constructivism existed before the 1917 Russian Revolution and exploded afterwards in various domains. To this day museums displaying this art are packed out. Cuban cinema was born after the revolution in which many directors and actors had participated and it thrilled Cubans and film festival audiences everywhere. Both attached to and part of it were the amazing Cuban documentaries, amongst the best in the world. Accompanying both forms were graphic artists and photographers of a high order. I’m very pleased that the Cuban film festival is reaching our benighted shore in the grip of austerity and war fever. Our citizens have a lot to learn.”

ADJOA ANDOH

Actor

“What a great idea to have a Cuban Film Festival in London. I remember performing in Havana and being so delighted to visit amazing drama and music schools and attend stunning ballet performances. How wonderful now to see that love of the arts through Cuban films!”

MICHAEL CHANAN

Filmmaker, writer, Cuban cinema specialist

“Cuban cinema is synonymous with the Cuban Revolution, the expression of both its aspirations and its conscience, its triumphs and just as important, its sense of social criticism. It was never merely propaganda, and never sacrificed artistic integrity, but on the contrary, took the political revolution as the motivation for aesthetic exploration, and thus grabbed the attention of cinephiles around the world, to become the spearhead of the iconoclasm of the New Latin American Cinema movement that emerged in the 1960s. This festival gives us a long-overdue opportunity to recapture this effervescent spirit and see how it has continued to keep its critical faculties alive, even against the odds.”

HOLLY AYLETT

Filmmaker, lecturer, cultural sector director

“Since the revolution Cuba’s culture has become central to its identity at home and abroad. Its filmmakers first won over their own audiences from Warner Bros, then the Havana Film Festival projected the struggles of Latin America on to the screen and Muestra Caribe brought Caribbean children a world in their own image. In spite of ongoing economic attack from the USA, Cuba continues to tell its stories through film and with Screen Cuba here is the chance to share some of this wonderful legacy. Avanti!”

ANDY DE LA TOUR

Actor and screenwriter

“Ever since I saw Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s classic film ‘Memories of Underdevelopment’ (1968) fifty years ago, I’ve appreciated the rich diversity of Cuba’s revolutionary film tradition. Despite the US-backed embargo and the squeeze on precious resources, Cuba has maintained its commitment to culture, including film. ‘Screen Cuba; Films to Change the World’ gives us a unique opportunity to enjoy this extraordinary legacy.”

JILL NICHOLLS

Documentary film-maker and feminist

“I was asked to be a patron of this festival when, as it happened, I had just watched ‘One Way or Another’ and ‘I’m Going to Santiago’ by Cuban filmmaker Sara Gomez, made in 1977 and 1964 respectively. I admired their freshness and independence of spirit. Unusual as a Cuban film director in being both black and a woman, she sadly died at age 31 – I would have loved to have seen more of her work. I look forward to seeing other Cuban films at this festival.”

NICK GOLD

Music producer

Screen Cuba is long overdue. We will finally have the chance to view some of the best films created in Cuba. It is a country that hosts the most important film festival in the whole of Latin America yet only a handful of films make their way to UK screens each year. And the few films that have made it here have been really well received. So welcome Screen Cuba!

FRANCES DE LA TOUR

Actor

“As an actor I’ve appeared in many independent films and know how powerful they can be. The Festival gives us all a great opportunity to enjoy the many voices of Cuban cinema all under one roof.”

DR GUY BARON

Writer, Senior lecturer, Aberystwyth University, Cuban cinema specialist

“It is with great pleasure that I offer my thanks and support to the organisers of ‘Screen Cuba: Films to Change the World’, a major new film festival showcasing one of the most important national cinemas of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Cuban cinema, since the Revolution triumphed in 1959, is both rich and diverse, and carries an importance in the world of film far beyond the perimeters of the island. Searching for a new film aesthetic in the 1960s, Cuban filmmakers have been re-writing the history of their island, and of colonialism, ever since, many of the films gaining a highly deserved international reputation. This new film festival is long overdue in the UK and I wish it every success.”

NAOMI SHELDON

Actor and screenwriter

TONY GRAHAM

Theatre director

“Art and culture in Cuba has touched all of us through its music, dance, literature and exuberant spirit. It springs from the heart of Cuban experience, born of resistance and popular expression. Cuban cinema is less well-known, if at all. This long-overdue festival promises to change all that. And at my favourite cinema too! I have a feeling that this festival might reach us in ways that only culture can – through the heart.”

SUSAN WOOLDRIDGE

Actor and writer

“When it came out here, I was so beguiled by Strawberry and Chocolate I saw it twice! I was then lucky enough to perform in Havana and quickly learnt how much more there was to discover about this extraordinary country. And of course – as so often – film is the perfect medium by which to do so.
I’m very much looking forward to the Screen Cuba festival and catching up on some wonderful Cuban films.”