Cuban film director Juan Carlos Tabío, author of important films such as Exchanges (1983), Plaff (1988) i Waiting list (1999), died this Monday, January 18 in Havana at the age of 77, according to the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) on its social networks.
The Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) has also mourned the death of Tabío, whom he described as “part of the transcendent work of Cuban cinema and the history of the nation.”
Among his most renowned works are also Strawberry and Chocolate (1993) i Guantanamera (1995), both directed alongside Tomás Gutiérrez Alea.
Tabío, winner of the National Film Award in 2014, began his career at the ICAIC in 1961 as a production assistant and later went on to work as an assistant director.
Between 1963 and 1980 he made more than 30 documentaries and worked on the script of several works. In 1989 he joined the San Antonio International School of Film and Television as a teacher at the Baths where he taught screenwriting and film directing.
His latest work was one of the stories that make up the film Seven days in Havana (2011), in which filmmakers such as Julio Medem, Benicio de el Toro, Lauren Cantet, Elia Suleiman, Gaspar Noé and Pablo Trapero also took part.
Numerous Cuban filmmakers and artists have expressed their condolences on social media.
“With just one of his shorts, or with movies like Exchanges O Plaff he is already at the Olympus of the best of Cuban comedy. Need to see again The elephant and the bicycle. There are many keys hidden in this work. Joan Carles father, the void you leave is terrible. You closed it and put the key in your jacket, along with the cigar box and the guapería, “said film director Carlos Enciam.
“(…) of his race are the chair of Saül Yelín, the piano of José María Vitier and the sadness of Luis García Taula in some corner of Ocean Drive. Everything else, no matter how deep, came then. 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 capable of repairing it, “wrote Joan Pin Vilar.
“A very talented director. His brilliant comedies (of excellent scripts) play with folklore but aren’t exactly folkloric; there’s more chicha here and that’s what makes them special. I always thought he was’ the king of comedy xusma ‘”, stated Manuel Marzel on his social networks.
The official portal Cubacine he announced that his body would be cremated and would later report on “the farewell to this man who thought of images and leaves us as a legacy an important career in the Cuban film industry.”