The Hannah Arendt Institute of Artivism, in collaboration with the Cine Cubano en Cuarentena (CCC) collective, is organizing the second edition of its film festival, to be held in Havana from November 1-7, 2021. Open to works made from 2019 onwards, the event's call for entries will remain open until September 30.

The II INSTAR Film Festival aims to gather audiovisual materials of any nationality, extension, genre and format, "beyond classifications and taxonomic divisions," according to a note published on social networks.

Focused on a transgeneric experience, the organizers will establish a unique competitive section that will group feature, medium and short films. Likewise, there will be room for new audiovisual aesthetics related to expanded and experimental cinema, as well as others more closely linked to the visual arts.

Each author may submit as many films as he/she deems appropriate, which will be evaluated by an international jury that will award a prize to the best work in competition and will also recognize the categories of direction, screenplay, photography, editing, soundtrack and acting. In addition, Cuban films in competition may be considered for the PM Fund distribution award granted by INSTAR.

In order to obtain the registration form, interested parties may contact the following e-mail address: festivalcine@instar.org. The official selection will be announced on October 30 on the institute's website.

With the intention of supporting independent Cuban audiovisual, the first edition of this alternative film festival organized by INSTAR took place from December 6 to 8, 2019, thanks to the impulse of actress Lynn Cruz.

On that occasion, the Cuban filmmaker told Rialta Noticias: "This proposal comes from my own nonconformity. The experiences I had as an actress in official spaces made me wish for a place where the filmmakers and actors of our country are prioritized, for the sake of our own cinema".

INSTAR -headquartered at Tejadillo Street #214, between Aguacate and Compostela, Old Havana- was founded on May 20, 2015. Since then it has developed, under the direction of artist Tania Bruguera, as a "civic education center" and a "democratic and horizontal" space that promotes artivism in favor of the historical memory of art and civil society as a whole.

To find out how the curatorial lines of the II INSTAR Film Festival have been configured, filmmaker José Luis Aparicio and poet Katherine Bisquet, coordinators of CCC, were kind enough to answer a brief questionnaire.

The call for the II INSTAR Film Festival was launched on July 1st. Today, more than a month after its publication, we would like to know how the reception of the works has developed. In this sense, how do you foresee the festival's program?

The first edition of the INSTAR Film Festival had a completely different model than this year's edition. This time the festival launched a public call for entries that is not limited to Cuban cinema. We are interested not only in Cuban cinema made in Cuba or by Cuban authors in the diaspora, but from all over the world.

We have received projects from Spain and Colombia. We have received projects from Cubans who live and create in Cuba and from Cubans who live and create abroad.

The curatorship of this festival will basically consist of a competitive section where the best film will be awarded, beyond the traditional generic distinctions. A vision of audiovisuals without taxonomies, open, plural, will predominate. We want this to be the spirit of the II INSTAR Film Festival.

This is influenced by the fact that INSTAR is a space more closely linked to the world of visual arts, where these generic boundaries have been erased in many ways. That is why we want to take on works by artists who are outside the most established schemes, such as video art, video installation and video creation. We are open to sui generis experiences.

We are also interested in including a group of works that are being generated with great force in Cuba and abroad. We refer to works of virtual reality, augmented reality, experimentation with these limits of audiovisual creation.

We are asking for films that have been released after 2019. We are doing this with the goal of receiving the most recent production, mediated by the pandemic. How have the extreme limits of the current health crisis translated into audiovisual creation? This is a question we ask ourselves as a curatorial collective.

The INSTAR Film Festival has no premiere requirements. Films that have been screened in Cuba as well as in any other festival in the world can be submitted, although this is also a festival that could premiere films.

What we want to give priority in the curatorship is the artistic quality of the works. Our interest is that they be risky works, that explore the idea of the unusual, of the experimental: the limits of cinematographic creation. We want films that provoke moving experiences and that do not leave viewers indifferent. Taking into account the same precepts of INSTAR as an institution, we are interested in a type of creation that questions and problematizes its reality, the society in which it is inserted. Works that have an impact on the civic space.

As programmers we are willing to be surprised by what comes up and to present the most varied, inclusive and risky program possible.

What other activities are planned in addition to the film screenings?

Apart from the competitive program, there will be other sections for the presentation of out-of-competition works. We want to make retrospectives related to the history of Cuban cinema from an alternative point of view. It is in our interest to break the canonical vision of Cuban cinema: that recurrence of authors, works, visions and ideas on how to understand national cinema.

We started this work before, with CCC, in order to broaden the idea of Cuban cinema, which has been quite limited due to the hegemony of ICAIC [Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográficos], as an official cultural entity for more than sixty years.

Retrospectives will highlight works and authors that have been left out of those official narratives from the 1950s and 1960s to the present day. Even pieces that do not belong to filmmakers, conventionally understood: visual artists, for example, and in general self-taught creators who have achieved an audiovisual work worthy of being shown and discussed.

There will also be special film presentations. Some authors will be invited to give master classes, workshops and lectures on a wide variety of topics. There will also be moments of exchange between the public and the filmmakers. Likewise, we want to hold an exhibition of visual arts that establishes a dialogue with the audiovisual world.

Of course, all of this is subject to the circumstances of the current COVID-19 pandemic.

How did CCC insert itself in the programming and accompaniment of the II INSTAR Film Festival?

CCC was invited by the INSTAR team to curate this second festival. Just as Lynn Cruz was in charge of the curatorship of the first festival, we are in charge of the curatorship of the second one. Maybe this will be a practice that INSTAR will implement in the future, we will see. Each festival could be curated by a different sensibility, perspective and vision.

We believe it is a very interesting idea because it would break what happens in many festivals around the world: having the same artistic director and curatorial team for many years generates an identity that in the long run is a straitjacket, limiting the possibilities of growth, surprise and alternative searches that film festivals should include. The idea is not to petrify with a determined, dissected idea of what contemporary cinema or audiovisual is, and to be in constant transformation. If INSTAR intends to continue with these multiple curatorships, it would escape from this traditional, rather stagnant scheme of film festivals.

In this case, CCC, in close collaboration with the INSTAR team, is in charge of the programming and curatorship of the event, as well as the design of the other activities, beyond the screenings.

From CCC we see it as an extension of the work we have been doing for more than a year now. We believe that the next evolutionary step of all this knowledge, all this knowledge, all this mapping work, is to pour it into film events and curatorships for exhibitions, biennials and all kinds of activities where it can be socialized, not only from the virtual space, to continue broadening and complexifying the visions on Cuban cinema.

How important is the presence of a festival like INSTAR in the Cuban film landscape?

We don't want to exaggerate when we say this, but it is necessary, fundamental, that festivals like INSTAR exist for the growth of Cuban cinema and audiovisuals. We are talking about a rather depressed panorama, not only because of the extreme and limiting conditions imposed by the pandemic in the whole world.

For example, even before the pandemic, a fundamental event such as the ICAIC Youth Festival had been postponed indefinitely; it fell into a kind of limbo. Its management team has practically stopped working within the ICAIC. It is an event whose future is quite uncertain.

The fact that the INSTAR oasis exists, not only with respect to film, but in relation to all alternative Cuban culture, is fortunate and says a lot about the tireless work done by Tania Bruguera and her team.

The INSTAR Film Festival provides a space for Cuban cinema; a cinema that has been somewhat orphaned in recent years, which has been quite mistreated by official institutions, with major events of censorship and marginalization. As filmmakers, we do not feel protected or supported by the cultural officials of the institutions that should respond to our concerns.

In addition, it is important not only that the space exists, but also that it has such an open and democratic philosophy, with so much freedom to think about the general concept. It is a great opportunity for CCC, and to continue working for the health of Cuban cinema.