“With this, we managed, perhaps, to fulfill one of our purposes, or at least begin to do so, which is to expand the horizons of the festival and not only look at the cinema of the Island, but also to the cinema of countries whose circumstances, also, for cinematographic creation, dialogue, are similar, establish a kind of relationship with those we live in the Cuban context,” he added.

“With this, we managed, perhaps, to fulfill one of our purposes, or at least begin to do so, which is to expand the horizons of the festival and not only look at the cinema of the Island, but also to the cinema of countries whose circumstances, also, for cinematographic creation, dialogue, are similar, establish a kind of relationship with those we live in the Cuban context,” he added. Born in 2019, the INSTAR Film Festival is promoted by the Hannah Arendt Institute of Artivism (INSTAR), founded by Cuban artist Tania Bruguera.

Born in 2019, the INSTAR Film Festival is promoted by the Hannah Arendt Institute of Artivism (INSTAR), founded by Cuban artist Tania Bruguera.

Its most recent edition, held from October 28 to November 3 in Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Munich and Berkeley (California), showed films from Ukraine, Russia, Palestine, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Guinea Bissau, Croatia, China and Hong Kong.

In this sense, Aparicio Ferrera affirmed that Cuban cinema needs to establish a dialogue with other cinematographies: “to go beyond our borders, not only the borders of the country literally, but also the borders of our own culture and learn from the experiences, from the aesthetic and productive findings, from counterparts, from colleagues from other parts of the world”.

At the online closing of the festival, Bruguera highlighted that this has been the most international of all those held by Instar.

“As is known, we had invited artists from other places that had situations similar to Cuba's such as repression, censorship, dictatorships or authoritarianisms; or from the global south.”

“I think it is an interesting bet that the festival you curate also has the intention of looking for the most daring proposals, let's say also in the language of how to give the themes of our places in our countries in the present,” he said.

Fifteen films were the official selection to compete for the Nicolás Guillén Landrián Award, only four of them were Cuban. The rest came from different regions of the world and focused on their complex socio-political contexts.

The award was given to the Cuban short film “La historia se escribe de noche” by Alejandro Alonso, “for its expert use of cinematographic language, a language closer to the human conscience in the act of documenting the serious social, political and cultural stagnation that Cuba is facing at this moment”.

A special mention was given to Dreams about Putin by Russia's Nastia Korkia and Ukraine's Vlad Fishez.

This year, the festival presented a retrospective of independent Chinese cinema of the last two decades, curated in collaboration with the Chinese Independent Film Archive, located at the University of Newcastle in the United Kingdom.

In addition, “we inaugurated a new section, non-competitive, specifically dedicated to independent Cuban cinema made on the island or in exile, in the diaspora, called ‘Panorama del cine cubano’, which keeps the festival's interests in this production in quite an important place,” Aparicio said.

All this speaks “of the festival's willingness to maintain ties with projects, with related institutions, but also to be open to new collaborations all the time,” the filmmaker stressed.