The 19th edition of the Santiago Álvarez in Memoriam International Documentary Festival, dedicated annually to the distinguished Cuban filmmaker, begins this Wednesday virtually, with extension to Multivision channel.

After the inauguration, by the president of the event and director of the Santiago Álvarez Office of the ICAIC, Lázara Herrera, the documentary El Drama de Nixon (1971) will be broadcast, which abounds in the North American invasion of Laos as part of the Yankee interferenceduring the harsh years of the Vietnam War.

Portrayed as an impeccable historical document by the outstanding director, an essential figure of the genre in the country, the 10-minute footage made in May 1971, will serve as a prelude to the special dedication of this edition, Vietnamese cinema and the solid relations between our peoples.

For this first day, in addition, those who visit the YouTube channels of the ICAIC, Cubacine , the Ministry of Culture, and the Santiago Álvarez Office, as well as their Facebook and Instagram pages, will be able to approach a sample of materials from previous Festivals.

It will be seen around 11:00 am They Say I'm Your Teacher, produced in 2019 by North American filmmakers Catherine Murphy and Lucy Massie -Phenix, which addresses the story of an African-American beautician from South Carolina ( Bernice Robinson) who was the first a teacher in the so-called “citizenship schools”, which made African-American students literate to be able to register in the South between the 1950s and 1960s.

This work influenced the foundations of the Civil Rights Movement that, since the 1960s, contributed to making visible the
rights of a broad social sector, deeply excluded since the days of slavery.

Likewise, the First Prize awarded in the history of the Santiago Álvarez in Memoriam International Documentary Festival , will succeed him in
the programming, it is La Chivichana, made in 2000 by the founder of TV Serrana, Waldo Ramírez de la Rivera, who also He is currently the General Director of Cuban Television.

For this afternoon, the theoretical event reserves the presentation of the critic Frank Padrón Nodarse on Álvarez's contributions to documentary cinema, followed by the transmission of the ICAIC Latin American Newsletter 376 of September 4, 1967, dedicated to solidarity with the brother people of Vietnam and the World Underwater Hunting Championship.

As the culmination of this first day of the event, an interview will be offered to the filmmaker, researcher, screenwriter and producer, Gloria Rolando, who will talk about aspects that interest genre scholars and her links with Santiago Álvarez.

The broadcasts scheduled as part of the Festival on the Multivisión channel will begin at 4:00 pm, according to sources from the Organizing Committee of the expected event, whose official headquarters is the province of Santiago de Cuba, but which this time is being held online due to restrictions health services by COVID-19.