Helmut Groschup: Nicanor
Eduardo del Llano – Nicanor (101')
PAS DE QUATRE, Cuba, 2009, dvd, 20'
Rodríguez has been waiting for a taxi or a bus for a long time to take him to Matanzas, a hundred kilometers away from Havana. Suddenly appears Nicanor, an exceptional taxi driver who serves his clients for free; to travel is one of the most important human rights, he declares...
ACHÉ, Cuba, 2010, dvd, 29'
Havana, 1974. Almost every day, Ana hangs a Cuban flag from her balcony. After a few years, the flag is stained, deteriorated. So, Ana asks her husband, Nicanor, to buy a new one and throw the old one away...
PRAVDA, Cuba, 2010, dvd, 15'
Nicanor has been busted for drawing graffiti at three am. Against all logic, the graffiti are supporting the government...
EXIT, Cuba, 2011, dvd, 37'
Rodrigo, a famous European artist, comes to Cuba to make a collage with portraits of one hundred Cuban artists. He wants the photos to reflect the suffering of creation, the anguish of being an artist... So he hires Nicanor, a simple worker, to punch the artists in the face, five Euros each...
He is one of the big shots in Cuban film, having written screenplays for Fernando Pérez, Gerardo Chijona and Daniel Díaz Torres. But not only is he a screenwriter, he is also head of the literature and theater group Nos y Otros and used to teach Art History at the University of Havana. On top of that, his novels and short stories are very popular all over Cuba, some of them even having been published in Europe. And now he even is a director. So, definitely a big shot.
I remember meeting Eduardo for the first time at the Innsbruck Film Festival in 2003 and being overwhelmed by his urbaneness and humor. I remember spending hours and days talking with him about music, film and literature, and wondering how he, coming from an “isolated” island, had managed to attain access to so much more art than I probably ever would. And I remember being in Cuba and staying with Eduardo and his family, feeling like one of them and enjoying my time with him and his creative friends – musicians, writers, filmmakers: paradise!
And then I realized that he was not one of those “stereotypical” Cubans who accept their fate of working and living under Castro’s regime – that Eduardo is one of those who dare to criticize the system. He doesn’t say it is bad. He just points out parts that may or may not be so good. And he does so with his characters, Nicanor being his recurring protagonist – in his films and his stories. He presents Cuban-ness itself – the ability to deal with serious situations by always adding in some humor.
I was with him in Havana when the first of the Nicanor short films, Monte Rouge (2005) – a comedy about officers coming to a man’s (Nicanor’s) house and telling him that they will install microphones to make sure they hear all his anti-government statements – had just been finished and had mysteriously distributed itself among the Cuban underground (within a few days, it had even made it all the way to Miami!). It was Eduardo’s first film as a director and he was kind of nervous about it. He quickly relaxed, though: whichever street he walked, there were always people who had seen the film – strangers or acquaintances – addressing him, congratulating him, showing him deep respect for his work. And for his courage and talent.
After ten Nicanor shorts, Eduardo is now making his first feature-length film. Way to go, big shot!
Evelin Stark
Assistant Director, International Film Festival Innsbruck
PAS DE QUATRE, Cuba, 2009, dvd, 20'
Rodríguez has been waiting for a taxi or a bus for a long time to take him to Matanzas, a hundred kilometers away from Havana. Suddenly appears Nicanor, an exceptional taxi driver who serves his clients for free; to travel is one of the most important human rights, he declares...
ACHÉ, Cuba, 2010, dvd, 29'
Havana, 1974. Almost every day, Ana hangs a Cuban flag from her balcony. After a few years, the flag is stained, deteriorated. So, Ana asks her husband, Nicanor, to buy a new one and throw the old one away...
PRAVDA, Cuba, 2010, dvd, 15'
Nicanor has been busted for drawing graffiti at three am. Against all logic, the graffiti are supporting the government...
EXIT, Cuba, 2011, dvd, 37'
Rodrigo, a famous European artist, comes to Cuba to make a collage with portraits of one hundred Cuban artists. He wants the photos to reflect the suffering of creation, the anguish of being an artist... So he hires Nicanor, a simple worker, to punch the artists in the face, five Euros each...
He is one of the big shots in Cuban film, having written screenplays for Fernando Pérez, Gerardo Chijona and Daniel Díaz Torres. But not only is he a screenwriter, he is also head of the literature and theater group Nos y Otros and used to teach Art History at the University of Havana. On top of that, his novels and short stories are very popular all over Cuba, some of them even having been published in Europe. And now he even is a director. So, definitely a big shot.
I remember meeting Eduardo for the first time at the Innsbruck Film Festival in 2003 and being overwhelmed by his urbaneness and humor. I remember spending hours and days talking with him about music, film and literature, and wondering how he, coming from an “isolated” island, had managed to attain access to so much more art than I probably ever would. And I remember being in Cuba and staying with Eduardo and his family, feeling like one of them and enjoying my time with him and his creative friends – musicians, writers, filmmakers: paradise!
And then I realized that he was not one of those “stereotypical” Cubans who accept their fate of working and living under Castro’s regime – that Eduardo is one of those who dare to criticize the system. He doesn’t say it is bad. He just points out parts that may or may not be so good. And he does so with his characters, Nicanor being his recurring protagonist – in his films and his stories. He presents Cuban-ness itself – the ability to deal with serious situations by always adding in some humor.
I was with him in Havana when the first of the Nicanor short films, Monte Rouge (2005) – a comedy about officers coming to a man’s (Nicanor’s) house and telling him that they will install microphones to make sure they hear all his anti-government statements – had just been finished and had mysteriously distributed itself among the Cuban underground (within a few days, it had even made it all the way to Miami!). It was Eduardo’s first film as a director and he was kind of nervous about it. He quickly relaxed, though: whichever street he walked, there were always people who had seen the film – strangers or acquaintances – addressing him, congratulating him, showing him deep respect for his work. And for his courage and talent.
After ten Nicanor shorts, Eduardo is now making his first feature-length film. Way to go, big shot!
Evelin Stark
Assistant Director, International Film Festival Innsbruck
