2024-02-12 12:05:49
Photo: X (Formerly Twitter)
Text: Hugo León
Cuban filmmaker Manuel Herrera, National Film Award winner, is currently preparing the script for what would be a film about Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, one of the heroes of the Cuban struggle against Spanish colonialism in the 19th century.
Céspedes, one of the leading figures of the Cuban independence movement, has been portrayed on several occasions by different audiovisual products, but what makes this future film special is that it will focus on the three months after his dismissal as President of the Republic in Arms.
During that time he was in the Sierra Maestra without an escort and waiting for a travel permit that never came, teaching in a rural school, until in February 1874 he was overtaken by Spanish troops and, wounded, decided to jump down a ravine to avoid fall captive to his enemies.
According to the veteran filmmaker, it is a new project, but at the same time old.
“I always greatly admired the figure of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, the Father of the Nation, and the first work of fiction that I presented to the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industries (ICAIC) when I was 20 years old was a script about the death of this hero ”, he said in an interview with the Prensa Latina news agency.
“At that time it could not be done, but it has been latent, and now I am writing about the death of Céspedes, but in reality it is about the three months that he spends in the Sierra after he is deposed by the House as President of the Republic in Arms,” he added.
Regarding the last weeks of Céspedes’ life and the context of the events that he will take to the cinema, Manuel Herrera commented that retrospectives of many things are included, among them the Guáimaro Assembly where Céspedes was named President of the Republic in Arms, his loves, and much more.
In addition, the film will delve into the descendants of the mambí hero and the betrayals and political conflicts that Céspedes experienced, including his controversy with Major General Ignacio Agramonte, another of the great figures of the Cuban independence war.
The film project is based on an ideal document to understand the thoughts of the patriot: the Lost Diary of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, rescued by the former Historian of the City of Havana, Eusebio Leal.
Herrera did not detail possible actors who will play the Father of the Nation in the different stages of his life, but he did comment during the interview that there are many talented artists who can assume that role.
There is also no information on the release date of the film. However, Herrera showed great expectations about his arrival in the cinema, because of the opportunity that he will represent for Cubans to get to know Céspedes, the man he was, his greatness and his extraordinary courage.
The filmmaker also confessed that with the project he would like to “have a true dimension of what Céspedes was beyond the portrait, beyond the Father of the Nation.”
Manuel Herrera is one of the oldest filmmakers in the country, at 84 years old and with a vast filmography under his belt. Among the titles he directed are Sapphires, Blue Madness, from 1997, a film that is among the biggest box office hits of Cuban cinema.