The INSTAR Film Festival, organized by the Hannah Arendt Institute of Artivism (INSTAR), will have its V edition starting next October 28, with physical screenings in several cities around the world. This event will run until November 3, with film presentations in Barcelona, Berkeley, Madrid, Munich and Paris.

In Cuba, the works that make up the Official Selection will be accessible from the Festhome online platform.

José Luis Aparicio, artistic director of the Festival, told ADN Cuba that “the selection process this year was focused on making it a festival with a more international showcase, where we kept the focus on independent Cuban cinema and Cuban diasporic cinema, but at the same time we opened up to other perspectives. It was important to include other filmmakers who come from other regions of the world where freedom of expression and artistic freedom is restricted, where there are authoritarian governments or who have been forced to work outside their countries for these reasons”.

“We hope that these films will find new viewers, that they will give rise to conversations about the themes of great socio-political importance that these works deal with. Also to talk about the making of these films themselves, the aesthetic aspect, the formal decisions, the ways in which these films are produced,” added Aparicio.

According to the official press release, the program will also include parallel activities such as talks and interviews that can be seen on the Festival's website and its social networks.

According to the director of INSTAR, Cuban artist Tania Bruguera, it is “a film showcase that supports international independent production, especially that of countries where freedom of expression and creation are threatened”.  

This year the festival maintains the “In Competition” section, for which 3,186 films were submitted. Finally, 15 films produced in 21 countries, including China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Hong Kong, Palestine, Dominican Republic, Russia and Ukraine, will compete for the Nicolás Guillén Landrián Award. In addition, two parallel sections were inaugurated.

One of them, “Cuban Cinema Panorama”, showcases 17 works of independent production from the island and its diaspora; the second one, “Retrospective”, comprises a selection of five films from contemporary Chinese independent cinema, curated in collaboration with the Chinese Independent Film Archive (CIFA). 

Another novelty of this edition is the launching of the first issue of the magazine Fantasma Material, a collaboration with Rialta Ediciones that pays tribute to the thought of Cuban-American scholar Gilberto Perez. The launching of the magazine will take place on October 26 at Cineteca Madrid at 7:30 p.m., followed by the screening of Mafifa, winner of the Nicolás Guillén Landrián Award at last year's festival.

This year's INSTAR Film Festival had 12 official collaborators: Association France pour la Démocratie à Cuba (AFDC), Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), Berkeley University, Chinese Independent Film Archive (CIFA), El Estornudo, Estudio Bruguera, Festhome, LatAm cinema, Maison de l'Amérique latine de Paris, Museum Villa Stuck, Rialta and Zumzeig. 

The INSTAR Film Festival initiative emerged in 2019 by the hand of Cuban independent actress Lynn Cruz as an alternative to the officialist spaces.