He death of Cuban director Juan Carlos Tabío, known in the early hours of this month, provoked a lot of reactions and comments on the social networks of institutions, artists and friends of the filmmaker.
“With deep regret, we announce that Juan Carlos Tabío, a dear friend, another legend of Cuban cinema, author of famous titles such as Se permuta, Plaff, Fresa y chocolate, Guantanamera and Waiting List, has died. Please offer your deepest condolences to your family, friends, filmmakers and associates, ”wrote Iván Giroud, president of the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema.
For his part, actor Albertico Pujol, who worked under the director’s direction on the short film Dolly Back, posted his feelings on his Facebook account when he heard the news: “First of all, our lifelong neighbor, big man, friend and Great artist. The deepest sadness and condolences for Ileana and her son Juan Manuel, our family is really bad ”.
One of Cuba’s most important film directors, he portrayed Cuban comedian Iván Camejo, emphasizing “his vast work” and emphasizing his favorite film in the filmography of Tabío and the entire Cuban cinema: The Elephant and the Bicycle. “If there was no cinema there, the first film is about to be filmed. To rest in peace. Here are some posters of his most famous films.”
Director Juan Vilar (Juanpin) wanted to announce and say goodbye to the filmmaker. In a post posted on his Facebook account, he shared the pain of losing: “Saúl Yelín’s chair, José María Vitier’s piano and Luis García Mesa’s sadness in a corner of Ocean Drive remain. Everything else, no matter how deep, came later. He does not need light for the path: he was the lamp, one of them, maybe the last. There is not a single antique shop in the Cuban cinema that can repair it. “
“Juan Carlos has always had a tough answer,” said director and friend Carlos Lechuga, who recalled an interview in which Juan Carlos Tabío was asked if he had ever considered making a vintage film; to which he replied, “From what age? From this age?”
“He accused well when they tried to erase him from the works he gave his life, films like Fresa y Chocolate or Guantanamera. He took on an extraordinary burden when, together with Guantanamera, Fidel Castro appeared on television talking about the film and immediately a very insightful friend called him on the phone to ask his opinion. Juan Carlos was saying to me: But does this bastard think I’m going to say what I think on the phone? “Lechuga said in his Facebook post.
Lechuga also shared memories of the director’s private life. According to his testimony, Tabío lived a little on the edge of the world of cinema: “I don’t want to know anything about cinema”, Lechuga remembered that the director came to tell him. “She wanted to be calm. He was always proud of his son. I heard him say several times, “We are a marriage of three.”
“In one of the movies,” Lechuga recalls, “I was worthy of directing and I had to make sure he ate, but at noon he would sneak into a nearby place to have a beer. Little by little, a few actors arrived to accompany him. There, for two or three beers, Juan Carlos spoke as much about barbarian invasions as about a sonata, Iraq, Cuban painters, in short. He was a cultured man. He had flaws, like everyone else, but his virtues were more ”.
In his opinion, with some of Tabío’s short films, or with films such as Se permuta or Plaff, he deserves to be “in the Olympus of the best Cuban comedies”. According to Lechuga, it is pertinent to reverion the Elephant and the bicycle: “There are many keys hidden in that work.”
“Juan Carlos Tabío is gone. My heart is crying! 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 we spent together, for the opportunities you gave me to make movies with you. A Great One is gone, “wrote Tahimí Alvariño, an actress who has worked under Tabío’s guidance in films such as The Horn of Abundance and The Waiting List.
“One of the great directors that Cuba has produced,” says director Ian Padrón, for whom films such as Dolly Back, Se permuta, Plaff, Fresa y Chocolate and Guantanamera, among others, are essential. “Enigmatic, modest and kind,” he reminded them of Juan Padrón’s son, who sent his condolences on behalf of the family.
Thais Valdés, Plaff’s lead actress, expressed her feelings on the news: “I keep the best memories of young Tabío. I regret saying goodbye from a distance. A hug for all those who feel their chest tight like me today.”
“Certainly something terrible, sordid must happen. In less than a week, two good people have died. First of all, Enrique Pineda Barnet and today, Juan Carlos Tabío,” said film critic Gustavo Arcos. “I don’t think so much about the works that are left, but about the creative processes, the ideas, that made them possible. I don’t know, there is a way to be in them, a way to interpret the world, the country , the island, which, with their death, we lost. They not only leave a void, but place us, more alone, in front of the horror “.
Likewise, several cultural institutions echoed the news and expressed regret for the loss of one of the most renowned filmmakers in Cuban filmography. The National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), the Hermanos Saíz Association or the Casa de las Américas have made public their condolences for the director’s death.