The fourth edition of the INSTAR Film Festival will take place during the week of December 4th to December 10th, 2023, in multiple venues around the world, particularly in cities with a significant Cuban expatriate community: Barcelona, Paris, Miami, New York, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and São Paulo. The selection of films will be available online for Cuba through the Festhome platform. The concept guiding this edition is the transnational character of the New Cuban Cinema and its growing dialogue with diverse cinematographies, especially those of countries also ruled by authoritarian governments.
We thank all the people and organizations that have contributed to the realization of our festival, especially the production and distribution companies of the films in the selection: Lights On, Habanero Film Sales, Producciones Pirámide, the world is ending and I'm making my films, Caja de Luz, Cosmic Productions, KITFILMS, La Cordillera Films, Mediocielo Films, Vega Alta Films, Estudio ST, Micromundo Producciones, ikaik films, Palenque Films, Independientes Bajo Tierra, WunderKabinett Films, Cooperativa Producciones, as well as to all the filmmakers for their works.
Official Jury
Alejandro Hernández
Screenwriter, novelist and film producer
(Havana, Cuba). Winner of a Goya Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for "Todas las mujeres" (2013, dir. Mariano Barroso). He has earned two nominations to the same award for "Caníbal" (2013) and "El autor" (2017), both directed and co-written by Manuel Martín Cuenca. He has also been nominated for the Goya for Best Original Screenplay for "Mientras dure la guerra" (2019), with Alejandro Amenábar as director and co-writer, and "Adú" (2021, dir. Salvador Calvo). He has also published three novels and teaches screenwriting at the University Charles III of Madrid, the Madrid Film School (ECAM) and the Prague Film School in the Czech Republic.
Dunja Fehimović
Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of Newcastle
(Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina). Dunja moved to the UK at the age of five, when war broke out in the former Yugoslavia. She received her PhD from the Department of Spanish and the Centre of Latin American Studies at the University of Cambridge in 2016. She has published the books “National Identity in 21st-Century Cuban Cinema: Screening the Repeating Island” (Springer, 2018), and “Branding Latin America: Strategies, Aims, Resistance” (Lexington Books, 2018, co-edited with Rebecca Ogden). Her current research project examines contemporary film production in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, to understand the relationship between coloniality and ecology. Dunja is co-founder of Cineforo Caribe and the Caribbean Film Teachers Network.
Paulo Antonio Paranaguá
Journalist, film critic and historian
(Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). Member of the surrealist movement in São Paulo and Paris. Graduated from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). PhD in History of Arts and Communications at the Sorbonne. Guggenheim Fellowship. His works include “Le cinéma brésilien” (Centre Pompidou, Paris, 1987, literary prize of the French critics), “Le cinéma cubain” (Centre Pompidou, Paris, 1990), “Le cinéma mexicain” (Centre Pompidou, Paris, 1992, English translation: “Mexican Cinema”, British Film Institute, London, 1995), “Arturo Ripstein” (Cátedra, Madrid, 1997), “Luis Buñuel: Él” (Paidós, Barcelona, 2001), “Tradición y modernidad en el cine de América Latina” (FCE, Madrid-México, 2003), among many others.
