The second edition of the INSTAR Film Festival, organized by the International Institute of Artivism "Hannah Arendt" in alliance with the Cuban Cinema in Quarantine (CCC) project, will be held from December 4 to 11 and will screen 41 Cuban and Latin American films online, including Corazón azul by Miguel Coyula, Quiero hacer una película by Yimit Ramírez and Sueños al pairo by Fernando Fragela and José Luis Aparicio, censored by Cuban cultural institutions due to their themes and stances regarding official Cuban politics.

This event thus becomes an alternative platform to promote national film voices kept out of the exhibition, distribution and promotion circuits of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry and the Ministry of Culture, such as the now defunct Muestra Joven, the Gibara International Film Festival, the Almacén de la Imagen and the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema. Precisely, the INSTAR Festival will be held parallel to the latter, which will inaugurate the second part of its 42nd edition on December 3 until December 12.

The official note of the event offers those interested the coordinates to "attend" the screenings virtually, stating that "if you are of legal age and live in Cuba and are interested in joining the online experience, please contact the organizers at the following e-mail address festivaldecine@instar.org. In the subject line write "I want to attend" and in the body of the email indicate your full name, your province and municipality of residence, and a Cuban cell phone number, so that we can guide you. If you live outside Cuba we will shortly give you the indications to participate in the event".

The INSTAR Festival will feature two special talks, one with Swiss artist Milo Rau and Cuban creator and activist Tania Bruguera, founder of the Film Festival and director of INSTAR, who will develop the theme "The trace of the document"; and the other will be with Mexican filmmaker Alonso Ruizpalacios (Güeros, Museo), recently awarded at the 71st Berlin Festival with the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution for his documentary A Policeman's Movie (2021).

Among the 33 films by Cuban directors contemplated in this edition, two short films will be screened that were supported by the PM Fund for Cuban audiovisuals, also organized by INSTAR three years ago to promote Cuban film creation: Hora azul (Zoe García, 2020) awarded in 2018, and New Eva (Natalí Cardet, 2020) awarded in 2019.

Five online tables will discuss the topics Cuban Cinema and Migration, Distribution in Cuban Cinema, Gender Cinema in Latin America and the Caribbean, and Queereme mucho. Cuban audiovisual on gender and divergent identities. The latter will complement and connect with the Festival's Derivas Queer thematic section, which hosts films such as Pandēmos and Sexilio, short and feature films respectively, both by young US-based Cuban filmmaker Lázaro González, the feature film Vulgarmente Clásica X by Nonardo Perea, and the web series Cuba también es queer by Nelson Julio Mairata. All from 2021.

Derivas queer is one of the eight thematic cycles programmed by the INSTAR Festival, including La isla en peso, Mal de archivo, Derivas Queer, La otra Cuba, Cine-performance, Márgenes, Así de simple and Foco-Latinoamérica, where six films by directors from Mexico, Dominican Republic, Colombia and Spain will be screened.

The program also includes two workshops that expand the scope of filmed images beyond the common fields of the Seventh Art: one on videomapping for experimentation with the audiovisual image and "Deconstructing the visual archive of a community", this one in alliance with the German organization HKW and its New Alphabet School #ContructingCommunity.

The first edition of the Film Festival took place in the month of December 2019, and its curatorship was in charge of Cuban actress Lynn Cruz, as a conclusion of the Muestra Cine Independiente-Cine Pendiente, developed at INSTAR by her for a year.