I was trying to make a cinema that was not the same as everything else, that did not match with everything else, that was a very personal cinema. The image was more important than the word itself. I was interested in elaborating the image through a new language, a daring language, interesting for the viewer.

Nicolás Guillén Landrián

The key Cuban documentary filmmaker Nicolás Guillén Landrián (1938-2003) bequeathed a crucial work to the heritage of Latin American cinema. Without it, the splendour acquired in the 1960s of the “Century of Lumière” by the Cuban documentary school, as it was defined by international critics, is inconceivable. This edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato pays tribute to this cult filmmaker and to the 65th anniversary of the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos. It pays this tribute with the presentation of four titles selected from the restored copies of Landrián’s filmography and with the feature film Landrián, an acknowledgement of the artist by Ernesto Daranas.

Luciano Castillo