A panoramic view of the normally quiet coastal town of Gibara in Eastern Cuba

The small town of Gibara plays host to this popular film festival that, for one week each April, transforms this mostly ignored northern coastal town into the buzzing cultural nerve centre of Cuba. Apart from film and documentary screenings, the festival involves live music, theatre performances, art exhibitions, and debates on film-making and post-production.

Focus of the festival

Formerly known as the Gibara Low-Budget Film Festival, the event was recently renamed to be more inclusive and to not discriminate between independent and commercial, main-stream and avant-garde, first and third world film catergories. The emphasis of the festival is to remain as an alternative to larger international film festivals, and to ignore labels and focus on recognising and celebrating the creativity, artistry, and technical excellence of filmmakers, actors, and technicians around the world.

The Humberto Solas Award

Festival International del Cine Pobre de Humberto Solas

Importance is still given, however, to the special low-budget category of films, with a specific and prestigious prize awarded in the name of Cuba's most revered filmmaker, Humberto Solas, who made most of his films on very limited budgets, to the winner of this category. The fact that the festival is still held in Gibara, and not in a main city in Cuba, also maintains the notion of supporting the alternative instead of simply following the main-stream.