Film-Dienst (issue 14/04)

Film content
Documentary portrait of a Cuban hip-hop band, where experimental artwork and staged moments meet in a precise and seemingly casual study. The songs, the lyrics, and the aspects of everyday life, the colourful stories about life, love and the behaviour of the sexes create a poetic mixture between fictional road movie and authentic artist portrait. Offering a complex portrait of the young generation in Cuba, this elaborate film is dedicated to the country, the music and the essence of the Latinos.

Feel the Wood
A Charming Musical Essay from Cuba: “Paraiso”

22.07.2004 Berliner Morgenpost
By Peter Claus

Yet another documentary film that pretends to show nothing but real life. And again the first images prove this assumption to be false: the film is too poetical, too cinematic, too artistic.
But in this case it is precisely here that its charm originates: the film director Alina Teodorescu and her husband, the cameraman Sorin Dragoi, produced in Guantanamo an essay charmingly oscillating between fiction and reality. The subject: the everyday life of a street band called “Madera Limpia”, meaning “pure wood”. The people in the tropical East of the sugar cane island make their instruments out of wood, scrap metal, plastic, debris of civilization. Through music they can flee from the poverty that marked their lives. Of course, this is usually the catch of an artistic product like this: at some point, even poverty seems somehow picturesque to the viewer from faraway Europe lulled by the sounds of music. But it is not the fault of the filmmakers that the Central European filmgoers cannot get the clichés of the multi-colored Cuba out of their mind since Wenders’ “Buena Vista Social Club”. A certain Cleverle promptly labeled the film “Buena Vista Social Club” of the new generation. “Paraiso” does not deserve this, nor do its protagonists. They say: “You have to dance to our music, sing and feel it in order to listen to it.” Adding pictures to the music means simply illustrating it. But it is done quite charmingly because the film doesn’t follow the usual pattern of the music documentaries with their eternal monotony of concert and interview hotchpotch, it really tries to feel the music. And it succeeds because every single viewer feels like moving his legs from the very beginning of the film.

„Paraiso”: The cool Buena Vista Turtle Club
by Jessica Düster 26.08.04
“Paraiso“ is a documentary about the music, the land and the people of eastern Cuba.
He’s bored. He’s bored to death. This is what Yasel Gonzales Rivera, vocalist of the band Madera Limpia, claims to be at least in his lyrics to the track “Verdad Global“. If you take a closer look at him – and this is exactly what director Alina Teodorescu and her husband Sorin Dragoi are doing -, you begin to doubt his boredom. Or you admire his creativity in trying to escape monotony.

Yasel and his friends make music here in eastern Cuba, far away from the glamour of Havana and the fame of Buena Vista Social Club. The plastic bottles and the pieces of wood (“pure wood”, as in Madera Limpia) that the sea sometimes washes ashore have to serve as instruments, while their music follows the Cuban Changuy. The young artists mix these traditional ways with their own favourite sounds: rap and hip-hop. The result is a contemporary and fast-moving mélange, which is representative for the young Cuban “son”. Yasel and the other men can’t really get bored, because they are much too interested in the charms of the other sex. This fascination is expressed not only in their songs, but also in fiery flirts. At the other end, the women’s main interest is looking as good as possible, not only to lure their countrymen, but mainly the rich tourists who are on holiday in “paradise” and could offer them a better life somewhere else.

The Chevy as a symbol
This perspective, coupled with the unsparing look into the most primitive of living conditions, proves that “Paraiso” is not only a music film, but also a portrait of the land and the people. This is symbolized by the 1957 Chevrolet, which repeatedly comes before the camera: the road cruiser with the broken windscreen has to be pushed continually and comes to symbolize the glamour of past times, which is of little use to contemporary Cuba. However, the old vehicle manages to start again and again, going further each time.
The “Madera Limpia” soundtrack and the innovative visual ideas make “Paraiso” an outstanding portrait of Cuba on the formal level, as well. The optical creativity of the Munich filmmakers was recently rewarded with the German Cinematography Prize.

By Jessica Düster, 26.08.04 (KStA)

UN RETRATO DE LA CUBA CONTEMPORÀNEA

par OMAR TORRES

“Paraíso” no se limita a contar la historia de una banda de jóvenes que experimentan con el hip-hop y la música tradicional cubana. El film de Alina Teodorescu es un retrato vivo del día a día cubano, visto a través de los ojos de algunos de los más creativos artistas musicales de Guantánamo. Utilizando personajes del barrio, e hilvanando relatos, opiniones y pensamientos sobre la vida, el trabajo, la música y el sexo, el documental es un tapiz emocional de la Cuba contemporánea.
“Mi prioridad en la vida es vivir. Mientras viva puedo tener ilusiones, sueños de tener lo que me falta, y lo que me falta es todo. Mientras viva puedo hacerlo”, afirma Yasel, líder del grupo guantanamero Madera Limpia, responsable de la fusión de ritmos orientales cubanos como el changüí con las tendencias más progresivas del hip-hop. Al mismo tiempo que Yasel nos expresa su deseo de vivir a pesar de la escasez de recursos, Rafael conduce un Chevrolet de 1957 cuyo motor apenas puede sobrellevar la carga de cinco décadas de uso. Su travesía por las pintorescas calles de Guantánamo en busca de gasolina se convierte en “late motif” y metáfora de la vida cotidiana en la isla, donde cada día presenta un nuevo obstáculo que hay que vencer para seguir adelante. No obstante, cuando “se acaba la gasolina” se mata un lechón y se forma la rumba, como se lleva haciendo en Cuba desde los tiempos de España.

La falta de recursos ha impulsado la creatividad de Madera Limpia, quienes utilizan instrumentos acústicos, como los tambores batá, la cáscara y el trés para cantarle al aburrimiento, el amor y la infidelidad entre otros temas. "Nuestra música la tienes que bailar, cantar y sentirla, para poder escucharla", comenta Puro, virtuoso del trés e integrante de más experiencia en el grupo, cuya melodía sirve de hilo conectivo entre escenas además de brindar cohesión al experimento musical de Madera Limpia.
Uno de los aspectos más brillantes del documental es la capacidad de Teodorescu para trazar un boceto inclusivo y equilibrado de la juventud guantanamera. En lugar de limitarse a explorar el punto de vista musical y masculino, Paraíso no deja de reflejar la complejidad de las relaciones amorosas desde la perspectiva femenina. Según queda expresado en entrevistas y conversaciones con las compañeras de los integrantes de Madera Limpia y otras mujeres que aparecen en el largometraje, los hombres cubanos de hoy comparten muchas tradiciones culturales y musicales con sus antepasados, constituyendo el machismo uno de los rasgos más marcados de ese legado.
Grabada en Mini DV y Super 8 y transferida a formato de 35 milímetros, Paraíso combina tomas a colores con fotografía en blanco y negro y se caracteriza por un estilo audaz donde se entrelazan historias y entrevistas personales que responden a diferentes estilos cinematográficos. A pesar de ser esencialmente un documental, no cae en la monotonía o el carácter estrictamente educativo que a veces se apodera de producciones similares. El movimiento de la cámara, la honestidad del pietaje filmado en la calle, y el uso inteligente de música y sonido componen un panorama fidedigno del entorno social de los personajes.

www.aguzate.org

Cornelia Fleer
Film review for the film “Paraiso”

A 1957 yellow Chevrolet slowly appears in the background. Suddenly the propulsion force fails and the engine hood disappears behind the hilltop again. This scene occurs several times in “Paraiso”. The question whether it is the car’s old age or the lack of petrol that are to blame for its failure to go over the hilltop remains open; at the same time, one wonders if the quotation with which Alina Teodorescu begins her film refers to this running gag with the Chevrolet: “The beginning of things is not to be found in the past. It happens here and now, in every moment”. Behind the wheel sits Rafael; he is always looking for petrol, and so takes Yasel along as he may need him for pushing the car. The camera takes a look at life on the streets of Guantanamo through the broken windscreen barely held into place by stripes of cello tape. Around 1000 km away from Havana, and close to the US naval base, there are no tourists here and no “Buena Vista Social Club”. A few young men are gathering flotsam, boughs and plastic bottles on a deserted beach; they check the sound of the new percussion instruments and get on with it. “Resounding wood”, “Madera Limpia”, is the name of the band. The film comes to the point quickly, just like the musicians of the hip-hop band. By the time the opening credits are over, the almost 50-year-old luxury cart has already succumbed for the first time. Alina Teodorescu’s camera followed Yasel and his band colleagues around for a while, creating a poetic documentary, which pulsates in the rhythm of Cuban hip-hop. Hip-hop, rap, reggae and traditional forms like rumba, timba and changuy are at the center of the young Cuban musicians’ lives. The lyrics focus on their daily fight for survival and everything in “Paraiso” revolves around music, poverty, dreams, love and boredom. “My priority in life? While I live I dream of what I lack. And what I lack is everything. While I live, I can do it!” says Yasel, who is far from being depressed. Because he knows one thing for sure: “A frustrated artist is the most unpleasant thing there is”. When he sleeps at night, he always has a pad and a pencil beside him, in case he gets an idea for a rap song. While Yasel’s voice-over goes on, the camera jumps from one shot to the next. Sometimes it shows Yasel in various postures on his bed, sometimes it looks into the room from above. The images jerk past in sudden panning shots as though in quick motion, and you wonder at the open build or the missing ceiling allowing you to peer over the sleepers. A lot of the scenes seem staged, an artificial effect that is augmented by the rough granulation of the some of the images.
The photography and the soundtrack often go separate ways, for example in a conversation about smoking that Yasel has with his mother. It is the sophisticated and dense design, which differentiates “Paraiso” from other music films and makes it a good document; it’s the artificial and at the same time authentic effect of Sorin Dragoi’shots, sometimes framed by Rafael’s Chevy window, and sometimes taken incidentally and accidentally in grainy black and white, as though by a surveillance camera: children at play, girls dancing, men who pile fire wood on a cart and give it to people in town. The musicians wipe away the water, which drips into their rehearsal room, food is cooked on primitive fireplaces, a pig is being fed, while Yasel takes a shower in the open and in the next shot tries to master the flood in the garden, which a tropical cloudburst is causing. At one point, Alina Teodorescu employs abrupt editing to make the band members and their girlfriends leave their barbecue on the beach and disappear in the sea. The interview fragments with Yasel and the musicians of “Madera Limpia” are entertaining. They document the young men’s opinions on life and love and it is surprising to see that women take the stand, as well. “You can’t live only out of love”, one of them quotes an old Cuban saying. The downside of this fragile paradise suddenly becomes clear in the presentation of their contrastive views. When young Cuban girls hook with rich foreigners old enough to be their grandfathers, than it’s not about sex or love, it’s about money and a better life. Deadly boredom is the norm in this Cuban paradise. “Boredom is what I fell, boredom, boredom”, Yasel sings in one of his songs. Sympathy almost leads you to excuse the macho philosophy, which the young men cultivate. The man wants countless women. “Affairs are there”, one of the musicians says, “to avoid monotony.”

Cornelia Fleer, Film-Dienst (issue 14/04)

ZWEITAUSENDEINS Lexikon des Internationalen Films

Berliner-Zeitung Thursday, 22 July 2004

The pig goes first
By
Ulrich Seidler

Alina Teodorescu’s documentary “Paraiso” tells the story of a Changuy band from the province town of Guantanamo; at the same time, it touches on the life of Cuban pigs: they can’t move about as they want to because they are tethered. They lie in the hot sun or the warm rain, depending on the weather. The feed on remains and slowly become fat. Children pat their ears every now and then. One day, three men come along and drag one of the animals by its ears and curly tail over to the fire. Once there, they cut open the pig’s skull, then its belly and finally they stick a wooden skewer through its anus and snout. The skewer revolves over the fire and the pig is cooked to music. Changuy is a kind of turbo-cha-cha-cha altered by rap and reggae. There is rum and all humans dance.

Hips swing appetizingly, bellybuttons wink, eyelashes beckon, looks ridicule. People pair off accurately in the middle despite the dancing turmoil. The footage looks disturbed, as well: the colours and the granularity change; the editing rate staggers behind the rhythm of the night, the images collapse and blur into a libidinous trace of light, which goes off, and the viewer – his ears still wobbling – finds himself on the washed out floor of the following morning: “Boredom is what I feel, boredom, boredom. A boredom that is critical, my soul leaves my life, self esteem is down again…The same monotony darkens the road that was…it makes me sick.” These lyrics belong to the otherwise quite wordy Yazel Conzalez Rivera, who dreams of paradise and confesses: ”My biggest problem? My life.” The pig doesn’t have this problem anymore. Rivera is the vocalist of Madera Limpia – it means “clean wood”, and it partly refers to the wood out of which traditional Cuban instruments are made; for lack of anything else, you can also prove your drumming virtuosity on braches washed ashore. At the same time, the name alludes to another sort of instrument, although the code employed here is rather obvious: “Listen my calling/ Now, in the morning/ I bring good timber, / hard timber, hot timber/ If you buy it, housewife, I promise, / I’ll put it inside your oven.../ Dry and hard timber, / Good to keep your fire going for hours, / the perfect fit for your oven...” The fact that the Chica Hermosa prefers to go with the dinero-gringo after all becomes the subject of a ballad entitled “Descargo fula” (“It went bad”). According to the song, there’s nothing you can do about such things; men are unfaithful by nature, while women cheat out of interest. The authors have sliced in a story about faith, which illustrates the opposite view: that yellow tank of a Chevrolet still has its original 1957 engine under the hood, which means that it has been in office two years longer than Fidel Castro. The Chevy can’t go up the hill anymore and petrol has become difficult to find, but Rafael, the grumpy driver who prefers plump women, would never leave his steal friend, irrespective of whether times get better or remain as bad as ever.

The director Alina Teodorescu tells a story about clichés, but her story doesn’t consist of any. Her film does not conceal social problems, nor does it bank on pity for its strength. Longing and foreignness don’t have to be mixed; they appear side by side in “Paraiso”. Allowing the other to be himself opens up the possibility of finding oneself with his help.

Berliner-Zeitung Donnerstag, 22. Juli 2004

http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-zeitung/feuilleton/360348-2.html

«Paraiso»: A look at the everyday life of Cuba and its lively music

http://portale.web.de/Film/Kino/Filmkritiken/?msg_id=51513

Hamburg (German press agency) – This year, Cuba and Cuban music are experiencing a surprising comeback. Five years after Wim Wender’s unexpected success with “Buena Vista Social Club” and its music veterans, two new music films about Cuba are hitting the German cinemas in the space of two months.
This time, both films are about young Cuban musicians. But they couldn’t be less alike, if they tried: a 200 000-euro film, partly shot with a video camera for financial reasons, meets a four-million-euro production, which can also boast the name of Wim Wenders. The David and the Goliath of Cuba films, so to speak.

The smaller rival “Paraiso”, a tape grown out of director Alina Teodorescu’s enthusiasm, is the first one to start on 22 July. Last autumn she borrowed some money (which she is still paying back) and took her small team down to Cuba for a couple of months. She came from Guantanamo with a film about the band “Madera Limpia”, one of the thousands of bands in which young Cubans are escaping the rigid climate of Fidel Castro’s extant socialism. The second film, “Musica Cubana” starts in September with the streamer “Wim Wenders presents”.

The two films are built along entirely different lines: whereas “Paraiso” documents the young musicians’ everyday life in the sad Cuban province, “Musica Cubana” simply presents a number artists, which makes it look more like a collection of music videos dotted with interviews and held together by a thin story about a taxi driver who wants to become a band manager. The interesting part is that “Madera Limpia” were also invited to a casting session, but got rejected.

Now they’ve got their own film – “Paraiso” – and their first ever CD as the soundtrack. Of course the album only came out in Europe, and had to be brought over to Cuba by friends abroad, for the musicians to be able to touch it, as well. Far from the official art of the state, they sing about the everyday life of Cuba: love, jealousy, rich foreigners who snatch away their most beautiful women, boredom, poverty, hoping for a better life, but also about having a lot of fun, the kind that appears as a reaction to hopeless situations. All this in fast Spanish rap mixed with Caribbean rhythms. Music from the streets for the streets.
From the point of view of genre, “Paraiso” is a documentary at first sight – with images of run-down houses, squalid apartments, rusty cars, and streets, which you can hardly drive on anymore. But people are the focus of the film: young, hopeful, proud, open, naively innocent men and women who talk about their lives.
Here are the guys, talking about the hard day-to-day life and boasting their many women – “ everyone’s macho”. Here are their girlfriends, who complain that men can’t be faithful and that girls agree to be bought by rich people too easily. All things considered, the film is an authentic and poetic portrait of a country, which the disintegration of the communist regime leaves facing violent changes in the future. And the lively music makes one forget that this is only supposed to be a documentary. © dpa

Rap’n’reggae
By
Roman Rhode

They even rap tricky rhythms on stranded goods on the beach. They mix that with Spanish riddims, producing as sound which lies somewhere between rap, reggae and son cubano. Madera Limpia (“Pure wood”) are seven guys from Guantanamo, who have to survive in the cultural standstill of the province. There are indeed palm-trees here, in the far southeast of Cuba, but hardly any beaches. “Boredom is deadly”, the band chants in one of its songs.

The Cuba Alina Teodorescu shows in “Paraiso” is by no means as heavenly as the film title would suggest, not even in its music. And that is because the Munich-based director portrays a band, which has nothing to do with the Buena Vista cliché. As it winds down the streets of the tropical town, the road-movie touches on music history, macho philosophy and couple dynamics, but Teodorescu’s main focus are the young musicians’ strategies for survival.

The 1957 yellow Chevrolet rattling its way to rehearsals and shows is not only one of the film’s vehicles and leit-motifs, it also serves as a metaphor for Cuba’s stumbling economy. Looking through the broken windscreen reveals of course the way in which Guantanameros live together in the street, that shimmering open-air theatre. Working at the meeting point of fiction and documentary, Teodorescu manages to capture the poetic moments of this not exactly spectacular daily routine.

http://www.tagesspiegel.de

“Paraiso”: a film about Cuba

Last year an impressive documentary came out, which avoids the tourist and musical centers of the Caribbean island. The filmmaker Alina Teodorescu (photo) chose Guantanamo, in order to discover her own “Paraiso” (the film title) here. With the support of the FilmFernsehFonds Bayern, but mostly out of her own resources, Alina Teodorescu has transposed a partly fictional, partly documentary plot into film. Its focus is the band Madera Limpia, whose everyday life has little in common with the nostalgia of Ry Cooder and Buena Vista. An impressive mixture of traditional “son” and rudimentary rap, the soundtrack reflects the way in which a life-like and authentic portrait of the far East can be captured with minimal means. You can find more information on the excellent soundtrack album and the cinema programme in July on www.teo-film.com/paraiso.
Mark Olson/Blue Rhythm/ issue 54/ June-August 04

redaktion@bluerhythm.de | ©2003 www.mjml.de

08.01.2004
Documentary about a young Cuban band

The story: the members of the band “Madera Limpia” (“pure wood”) make music with the simplest of instruments, pieces of wood or plastic bottles that they find on the beach. Mostly a combination of pulsating Changuy, rap and hip-hop, their songs are about making it in the streets. And the streets of the province town of Guantanamo in tropical Eastern Cuba are not exactly paved with dollar bills: “My priority in life is to live”, says Yasel, the film’s main character. “While I live I dream of what I lack. And what I lack is everything.” And so, another band member says that the best thing to do about this music is “dance and feel it – in order to hear it” speaking about everyday things like love, longing or frustration. The snapshots are pieced together by Rafael’s drives, who gets to know the musicians as he tries very hard to earn a living.

The director: Born in Romania and currently living in Germany, Alina Teodorescu is very perceptive about the living conditions, the hopes and the dreams of contemporary Cuba. In this her first long film, she skillfully alternates colour and black-and-white footage.

Conclusion: a lively documentary, which proves without a doubt that there is a young Cuban music scene beyond the old gentlemen of Buena Vista Social Club, and that it’s worth discovering.

Eckart Alberts (Hamburger Morgenpost)

Dreams on the Caribbean island
“Paraiso” speaks about young Cubans and their fight for survival

Cuba. Even nowadays, many people think of it as a heavenly place, where content grandmothers rock their grandchildren on turquoise porches. Reality is different. The author Alina Teodorescu asks young Yasel from Guantanamo, the band Madera Limpia (“pure wood”)’s vocalist, what his dream is. “I want to go to heaven”, the prompt answer comes. Paradise. The place where all suffering and want comes to an end.

She asks him what the most important thing in his life is. It’s “to live; while I live I can have illusions, dream of getting what I lack, and what I lack is everything”, answers the braided, barely 20-year-old singer, while his sad eyes look into the camera.
The film “Paraiso” approaches David, Yasel, Puro, Gerald, Pedro, Mendez and Yovi without any comments. The images and the interviewees speak for themselves.

Young Rafael drives his old Chevrolet, broken windscreen and all, through the eastern Cuban town. He asks ten people for petrol, before he can get any. “Paraiso” has nothing to do with the nostalgic comfort of the Buena Vista Social Club senior combo. This is about grandchildren and their tough fight for survival. There is little variety in their lives, a lot of boredom and frustration. Men and women say, “all men are machos here”. And both men and women cheat purely out of boredom. Everyone thinks here that money would solve all their problems. Young women run away with rich tourists twice their age, the so-called gringos. The members of Madera Lipia have something to say about all this: “Boredom is deadly”.

It is in the streets that Yasel finds his lyrics. His music often lies in an empty plastic bottle or a piece of wood. Love, everyday betrayals, everything inspires him. Even the dancers, to whom the song “The fat girl and the thin girl” is dedicated. Madera Limpia’s music uses traditional Changuy and typical instruments like Tres (three-string guitar), Bongos, Guiro, Maracas and Marimbula, mixing them with reggae and hip-hop elements.

Despite all the heart-wrenching details, the film is by no means a gray social report. It shows how Yasel and his friends manage to escape everyday life at least in the rehearsal room on their out-of-tune piano; it shows the shadow of happiness.
ANNETTE STIEKELE (Hamburger Abendblatt)
http://www.abendblatt.de/daten/2004/01/08/248679.html

A view of everyday life
08.01.2004

The old yellow Chevrolet pushes up the hill with a rumble. Before reaching the crest of the asphalted hump, the engine dies with a loud bang. Rafael curses and lets the idle old Chevy roll back down the hill. Paraiso begins and ends with this scene. Rafael, who’s always looking for petrol and often in a bad mood, is the chauffeur of Madera Limpia, a Cuban rap band from Guantanamo… “The vitality of these people impressed me”, says the director, who grew up in Romania and Germany.

It is this vital force, which plays the main role in Paraiso (Spanish for paradise), as the film is not actually the portrait of a band, but a profound look into the everyday life of this eastern part of the island. Life here is not exactly heavenly, it is marred by quotidian want: waiting for a means of transport to visit one’s parents in the country; missing the building materials to mend the roof, which allows the rain to drip into Madera Limpia’s rehearsal room; looking for petrol and food.

However, the band members master this difficult routine with a lot of lust for life, and “it was this personal experience that I wanted to get across in this film”, says the director. Her effort opens our eyes to an entirely different Cuba, because as opposed to Havana or Santiago de Cuba, there’s really nothing going on in Guantanamo. This place is sound asleep and only livens up at carnivals. There’s no opportunities for the town’s youths, Yasel complains, the leader of Madera Limpia and the film’s main protagonist. There’s no Ry Cooder in Guantanomo waiting the island’s young music talents, and so they develop their own rap. Yasel & Co. play hip-hop with a large portion of Changuy, Nengon and Kiriba, the region’s traditional genres. The seven artists don’t mince matters in their lyrics. They rap about the gray-haired tourist, who snaps away one’s girlfriend with his dollars, they rap about boredom, frustration and about their dreams.

The routine in Guantanamo, a place whose international fame was only acquired via the hated US naval base, is at the center of Paraiso, is a film beyond the Buena Vista clichés.

Knut Henkel Taz Hamburg issue no. 7252

" ...schneller als man denkt, hat einen die Mischung aus Doku und Fiktion eingenommen. ...Der Independence-Film ist so wie Kubas junge Musik: Schnell, heiß und herzlich."

(Bayern 3/Rundfunk)

La Teodorescu apuesta por Santiago de Cuba
(05.03.2005 Granma / Cuba)

Comienza hoy Festival Internacional de Documentales Santiago Álvarez in Memoriam
Pedro de la Hoz

A pesar de que en los últimos meses su obra ha tenido una activa circulación en Alemania y Estados Unidos, la realizadora de origen rumano y radicada en Munich, Alina Teodorescu va a sentirse al fin reconciliada con la historia que cuenta en su película Paraíso solo cuando palpe con todos sus sentidos la reacción del público santiaguero.

Cartel de Paraíso, de Alina Teodorescu.

Ella es uno de los tantos realizadores —suman las 150 inscripciones de 19 países— que han confiado en Santiago de Cuba como espacio promocional de excelencia para el género documental.
A partir de hoy y hasta el martes la segunda ciudad de Cuba acogerá el VI Festival de Documentales Santiago Álvarez in Memoriam, con el cual el ICAIC rinde homenaje al gran maestro y renovador del género.
Para Lázara Herrera, viuda del realizador y principal promotora del Festival, la actual edición culmina una etapa y abre otra: de una parte se logra por primera vez una dimensión internacional, mientras, de otra, compromete a sus organizadores para situarse a la altura de las nuevas expectativas de un género que recobra su pujanza en la escena mundial.

MADERA LIMPIA GUANTANAMERA

En la programación en concurso habrá que seguir el interesante material que la Teodorescu concibió junto al director de fotografía Sorin Dragoi, por cuanto incursiona en la tan llevada y traída visión que se tiene de la música cubana en el exterior a partir del fenómeno Buenavista Social Club, filmado en su momento por el alemán Win Wenders.

Esta joven e inquieta realizadora rodó Paraíso (Teo-Film/Munich y FFF/Bayern) en Guantánamo, donde registró la experiencia del grupo Madera Limpia, que en esa ciudad oriental conjuga las raíces soneras, particularmente el changüí, con el hip hop. El resultado desborda el marco del musical para ofrecer una mirada comprometida con la vida cotidiana de los guantanameros.

Valores como la resistencia, la solidaridad y el optimismo, así como la lucha contra prejuicios sexistas, resaltan en Paraíso y llama la atención por saltarse los tópicos apocalípticos y exóticos con que se suele vender la realidad insular.

De ahí que la crítica en el Berliner Zeitung subrayara la capacidad de su directora para contar "una historia sin clisés", mientras que el Morgenpost, de Hamburgo, señalara que se trata "de un muy vivo documental que prueba, sin dudas, que existe una joven escena musical cubana más allá de los venerables caballeros de Buenavista Social Club".