the death of Cuban film director Juan Carlos Tabío, Known in the early hours of this Monday, has caused an avalanche of reactions and comments on social networks of institutions, artists and friends of the filmmaker.
“With deep sorrow, we announced the death of Juan Carlos Tabío, a close friend, another Cuban film legend, author of famous titles such as Es permuta, Plaff, Strawberry and Chocolate, Guantanamera and Waiting List. Reach your relatives, friends, filmmakers and close circles our deepest condolences, “wrote Iván Giroud, president of the International Festival of the New Latin American Cinema.
For his part, the actor Albertico Pujol, who worked under the direction of the director in the short film Dolly Back, posted on his Facebook account his feelings when he heard the news: “In front of all our neighbor of all life, great man, friend and great Artist. Our deepest sorrow and our condolences for Ileana and her son Juan Manuel, our family really feels it. “
One of the most important film directors in Cuba, expressed the Cuban comedian Iván Camejo, focusing on his “vast work” and highlighting his favorite film in the filmography of Tabío and all Cuban cinema: The Elephant and the Bicycle. “If there was no cinema up there, they’re about to shoot the first film. Let it rest in peace. Here I leave some posters of his best-known films.”
The director Juan Vilar (Juanpin) also wanted to make public his farewell to the filmmaker. In a post posted on his Facebook account he shared his grief over the loss: “Of his race are the chair of Saul Yelin, the piano of Jose Maria Vitier and the sadness of Luis Garcia Table in some corner of Ocean “Everything else, no matter how deep, came later. He doesn’t need light for the road. He was the light, one of them, perhaps the last. There is not a single antiquarian left in Cuban cinema who can repair.” -the “.
“Joan Carles always had a biting answer,” said film director and friend Carlos Enciam, who recalled an interview in which he was asked by Juan Carlos Tabío if he had ever thought of making a vintage film; to which he replied: “Of what epoch? Of this one?”.
“He took good care of himself when they tried to erase him from works he put his life into, films like Strawberry and Chocolate or Guantanamera. He took tremendous charge when with Guantanamera, Fidel Castro appeared on television talking about the film and immediately called him a very insightful friend on the phone, to know his opinion. Joan Carles said to me: But this comemierda is believed that I will tell him what I think by phone? “, He said Lettuce in your Facebook post.
Lettuce also shared memories of the director’s private life. According to his testimony, Tabío lived a little outside the world of cinema: “I don’t want to know anything about cinema”, recalled Lettuce that the director went so far as to tell him. “He wanted to be calm. He was always proud of his son. I heard him say it several times: we’re a couple of three.”
“In one of the films,” Lechuga recalls, “I was deserving of directing and I had to make sure I ate, but at lunchtime, I would run to a nearby place to have a beer. little by little some actors came to accompany him, and between two or three beers, Joan Carles spoke of barbarian invasions as well as of a sonata, of Iraq, of Cuban painters, in short, he was a cultured man. He had flaws, like everyone else, but they were more his virtues. “
In his opinion, with some of Tabío’s short films, or with films such as Es permuta or Plaff, he deserves to be “at the Olympus of the best of Cuban comedy”. According to Lettuce, it is pertinent to look again at The Elephant and the Bicycle: “There are many keys hidden in this work.”
“Juan Carlos Tabío is gone. My heart cries! An exceptional man. Cuban Cinema and Culture are losing one of their great creators. I just have to say, Thank you Juanca, for your friendship, for all the moments that we went together, for the opportunities you gave me to make Cinema by your side. a Great one is gone “, wrote Tahimí Alvariño, actress who worked under the direction of Tabío in films like the horn of the abundance and waiting list.
“One of the great filmmakers that Cuba has given,” says director Ian Padró, for whom films such as Dolly Back, It Swaps, Plaff, Strawberry and Chocolate and Guantanamera, among others, are essential. “Enigmatic, modest and kind,” reminded him of Joan Padró’s son, who sent his condolences on behalf of the family.
Thais Valdés, Plaff’s leading actress, also expressed her feelings at the news: “I am left with the best memories of the always young Tabío. I regret the farewell at a distance. A hug to all those who today feel their tight breasts like jo “.
“Something terrible, sordid must be happening. In less than a week, two great men have died. First, Enrique Pineda Barnet and today, Juan Carlos Tabío,” said film critic Gustavo Arcs. “I don’t think so much about the works they have left, but about the creative processes, the ideas, that made them possible. I don’t know, there is in them a way of being, a way of interpreting the world, the country, the ‘island, which, with their deaths, we have lost. They leave not only a void but place us, more alone, in the face of horror.’
Likewise, several cultural institutions have echoed the news and expressed their sorrow for the loss of one of the most recognizable filmmakers in Cuban filmography. The National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), the Saiz Brothers Association or Casa de las Américas made public their condolences for the director’s death.