Starting this Thursday, May 2, the film can be seen in all theaters of the Cinépolis chain. Fito’s Havana. The documentarywhich was part of the programming of the recent edition of Bafici, and revolves around an extensive gathering held in 2017 by the artist from Rosario and the director of the film, Juan Pin Villar, in the Cuban capital. It happened on the terrace of a hotel, taking advantage of a visit by the musician to the Caribbean nation. According to the filmmaker, the audiovisual record of this interview was initially intended to leave a valuable archive for his grandchildren. However, during the pandemic, his compatriot, producer Rafael Figueredo, suggested he apply for a fund to turn those hours of talk into film material.
Apart from the dialogue between the two, Fito’s Havana includes testimonies from Pablo Milanés, Cecilia Roth, Carlos Alfonso and Ele Valdés (both members of the legendary Cuban group Síntesis), the actor Luis Alberto García Novoa, the writer Wendy Guerra and Rafa Escalona (member of the Network of Music Journalists of Ibero-America). The documentary is, ultimately, an invaluable document about Cuban history and culture, from the perspectives of a city dweller and a citizen of the world. Although it also reveals the influence of the Argentine musician, singer and composer on the music scene of that country, and the weight that Cuban artists had in their formation.
The first time that Villar and Fito spoke about the possibility of carrying out this audiovisual record happened after the death of Santiago Felior. And it was precisely this indispensable figure of the New Cuban Trova who presented them in 1987. The author of “I come to offer my heart” had landed for the first time in Havana as an international act of the renowned Varadero Festival. He came to the event after the murder of his aunts in Rosario, thanks to the mediation of Pablo Milanés, who ended up strengthening the relationship between filmmaker and musician. From that moment on, the artist established a strong emotional bond with both the Cuban public and the local artistic environment.
The Argentine singer-songwriter was notably impacted by that debut in Cuba, which was evident very shortly afterwards in his studio album Hey! (1988). The song “For seven lives (Hunting)” can attest to this, crossed by Afro-Caribbean rhythms and for which he invited a Cuban wind section. Beyond that, Villar, who was in Buenos Aires for the premiere of his film, recalled that in that first step through Fito’s country he was able to learn first-hand about the Havana reality. He did it through conversations and meetings that he had on the street not only with the artistic environment, but also with ordinary citizens. Which allowed him to build his own version of local reality. And he confirmed it again in his second visit to that country.
These reflections are exposed in the film, whose premiere was censored in April 2023 by the Cuban cultural authorities. This sparked a controversy that aroused the indignation of Fito himself, who spoke out on the matter, saying that those who disapproved of the film’s screening “do not represent the Cuban people.” While the event gained international relevance, the government decided to broadcast the incomplete documentary on state television, without authorization from the filmmakers, which it decided in a letter signed by 600 artists, among whom were the troubadour Silvio Rodriguez and the actor Jorge Perugorríadenouncing “errors” and “similar procedures” that “became systematic” in Cuban cinema.
Páez, who dedicated a song to the Cuban capital, “Habana,” on his album Apre (1999), when asked by Villar in one of the passages of the documentary, regarding the changes he saw in Havana since his first time there, he answers: “This (referring to the city) is pure splendor. I hope that when I change this, it cannot be overridden. “I don’t think the Cuban intelligentsia will allow it.” Apart from its premiere on May 2, Fito’s Havana It will be screened again on Tuesday, May 6 and Wednesday, May 7, at 9 p.m., in the theaters of the Cinépolis chain. It will be a unique opportunity to appreciate an artist in a state of grace struggling between rawness and love.
