2024-02-01 00:40:53
A factual cinema, which seeks to tell objective stories and show them without cuts or manipulations, is part of the prize list of the Senegalese producer and director Christian Thiam, very interested in interacting with the way in which Cuba defends an authentic cinematography, jealous of aesthetic, preservation of heritage, and attached to its roots.
Visiting the diplomatic mission of the largest of the Antilles in this capital on Wednesday, Thiam admitted to being attracted by the defense of Cuban identity and the Cuban higher education program in the so-called seventh art, whether thanks to the achievements of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry, ICAIC, or the famous International School of Cinema and Television of San Antonio de los Baños, EICTV.
During his talks with Ambassador Maydolis Sosa Hilton, the professor from the Virtual University of Senegal, who considers that “Cuba is cinema”, received detailed information on the call for applications for the new regular course of the EICTV, as well as a file on the cultural structures of the country which constitute the academic, production and events circuit which culminates each year with the Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana.
Regarding the academy, it was recalled that the EICTV is considered one of the most important audiovisual training institutions in the world, created in 1986 under the auspices of the Foundation of New Latin American Cinema, in particular for students from the South, where Africa has played an important role over the past 38 years. In addition, thousands of professionals and students from more than 50 countries have passed through its classrooms, making it a space of cultural diversity.
The eminent filmmaker was also interested in the defense of heritage, since the ICAIC film library preserves more than 3,500 protected national titles on different types of media. Among them, the Grade I Heritage exhibition in the National Register of Cultural Properties, which includes 21 films dating from before the revolutionary triumph of 1959, 47 fiction films, 59 documentaries and 17 animated films.
One of the “crown jewels”, it has been said, is the preservation of 1493 editions of the “Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano”, declared by UNESCO as a register of the memory of the world.
Rigorous climate control settings in seven high-tech vaults, innovative scanning and restoration services, cataloging, as well as a photo and video library, complement the work of a group of highly qualified professionals.
A committed researcher, in search of essences where man is the actor of his own relationship to the world, adverse or happy depending on the case, Christian Thiam has brought several realities to cinema.
From his debut as a filmmaker in 2009 with the documentary “Samba Kane: Life in Prison”, about a Senegalese exile sentenced to life in the United States, to the famous “Casa Di Mansa” about the conflict in the southern region of Casamance, he explored real feelings, life chronicles through racial facts, justice, tolerance, identity and, of course, love.
His first fiction feature film, “Mami Watta”, released in 2021, also represented Senegal in several international festivals. Delia, a young girl from a fishing community in the suburbs of Dakar, discovers that she has the power to predict the future, and tragedy knocks at her door, generating conflicts that will have harmful consequences for the neighborhood.
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