The V INSTAR Film Festival awarded its Nicolás Guillén Landrián Prize to the Cuban short film La historia se escribe de noche (2023), by Alejandro Alonso, and decided a special mention for Dreams about Putin (2023), by Russian Nastia Korkia and Ukrainian Vlad Fishez.

The event's jury, made up of curator and critic Jonathan Ali (Trinidad and Tobago) and filmmakers Joanna Montero (Cuba) and Francesco Montagner (Italy), recognized during the closing ceremony, which took place on Sunday, November 3, Alonso's film “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 Cuba is facing at this moment.”

He also indicated in his verdict that they decided to award the short film “for its poetically hypnotic nature, evocative of a soul afraid of mirrors, and literally and figuratively of lights in the dark”.

The synopsis of La historia se escribe de noche, a co-production between Cuba and France, states that “a major blackout has plunged Cuba into darkness. In the streets, the inhabitants try to escape the gloom while the fires of the bonfires seem to announce the end of an era. Sheltered inside our house, my mother tells me about a vision that has been haunting her for years.”

As for Dreams about Putin, they based the special mention “on its political and artistic impact”, as it is a film that shows “the impact that repressive political figures have on our minds”. In their opinion, this experimental short film “transfigures and creates archive, footage that partially belongs to the world of the unconscious, revealing the need of dreams to exorcise our fears”.

This film, co-produced between Belgium, Hungary and Portugal, bases its plot on the dreams and nightmares that numerous people began to experience with Vladimir Putin after the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

After those people began sharing these dreams in the media, “more than a thousand dreams about Putin have been documented. This film is an essay on the unconscious, nightmares and hopes of many Russians. It is an attempt to reflect on the subject of repression through the prism of art.”

The award-winning works, according to the event's rules, are those that best reflect taboo themes of the societies in question. The Nicolás Guillén Landrián Award is endowed with 3,000 dollars, and the special mention with 1,500, sums destined to support the next achievements of the awarded filmmakers.

The 5th edition of the INSTAR Film Festival, organized by the Hannah Arendt Institute of Artivism, directed by Cuban artist Tania Bruguera, took place between October 28 and November 3 at venues in Barcelona, Madrid, Munich, Berkeley (California) and Paris, while the works were available via Internet for Cuba through the Festhome platform.

Bruguera acknowledged during the closing ceremony that this is the year in which more applications were received for the event, which meant choosing among more than 2,000 films. The artist also pointed out that it has been “the most international of the festivals we have held” since the event's inception.

The festival, held every year, privileges audiovisuals with risky aesthetic and narrative proposals, as well as hybrid pieces of any nationality, length, genre and format. It is also the only film festival in which works produced both inside and outside Cuba by Cuban filmmakers coincide, and in which films censored by the Havana regime are shown.