Miguel Coyula | |
|---|---|
| Born | Miguel Coyula Aquino 31 March 1977 Havana, Cuba |
| Citizenship | Cuba, Spain |
| Occupation(s) | Filmmaker, writer |
| Years active | 1996–present |
Miguel Coyula Aquino (born March 31, 1977, in Havana) is a Cuban filmmaker and writer. Working with a multi-disciplinary approach, his films usually take several years to complete. He has been described by critics as a virtuoso [1] and an innovator. [2] The multi-layered narratives of his films often deal with alienation, they contain graphic depictions of sexuality, and frontal criticism of society and politicians. The controversial nature of his work has resulted in the banning of his work in Cuba, although it has also suffered censorship in Argentina, [3] Belarus, Morocco, and Beirut. [4] The press usually refers to him as the enfant terrible of Cuban Cinema. [5]
At age 17, he made his first short with a VHS camcorder, which led to his admittance to Escuela Internacional de Cine y Television (The International Film and Television School) of San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. In 2001, he received a scholarship at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. While attending the Strasberg Institute, Coyula made his first feature, Red Cockroaches (2003), for less than $2000 over a two-year period. The film was described by Variety as "a triumph of technology in the hands of a visionary with know-how..." [6] The film won over twenty awards in film festivals around the world.
In 2009, Coyula was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship by The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for developing his second feature, the film Memories of Overdevelopment (2010), a follow-up to the Cuban classic Memorias del Subdesarrollo (1968), based on the novel by Cuban writer Edmundo Desnoes. After its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival , the film garnered several awards and honors. The International Film Guide described it as one of the best films Cuba has produced. [7] In 2013 La Pereza Ediciones published his first novel Mar Rojo, Mal Azul. From 2015 to the 2016 he produced the web Series Rafael Alcides and the documentary feature Nobody (2017) which won the Best Documentary award at the Global Film Festival in Santo Domingo. His latest feature Blue Heart (2021), was filmed over ten years in Havana, premiered at the [[Moscow International Film Festival[[ and won the Hollywood Foreign Press Association award at the Guadalajara International Film Festival . Cineaste described the film as "...the culminating point of Coyula's artistic growth. It stands as his most visceral experience..." [8]
His second novel, La Isla Vertical was published in 2022 by Ediciones Deslinde, and in 2024 his essay book, Matar el Realismo by Hurón Azul Ediciones, both in Madrid.
In 2024 his documentary Chronicles of the Absurd won the Envision Competition Award for Best Film at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam [9]
Memorias del Desarrollo has won 20 awards, including:
Red Cockroaches has won 23 awards, including:
Fernando Fernández Gómez, better known as Fernando Fernán Gómez, was a Spanish actor, screenwriter, film director, theater director, novelist, and playwright. Prolific and outstanding in all these fields, he was elected member of the Royal Spanish Academy in 1998. He was born in Lima, Peru while his mother, Spanish actress Carola Fernán-Gómez, was making a tour in Latin America. He would later use her surname for his stage name when he moved to Spain in 1924.
Anand Patwardhan is an Indian documentary filmmaker known for his socio-political, human rights-oriented films. Some of his films explore the rise of religious fundamentalism, sectarianism and casteism in India, while others investigate nuclear nationalism and unsustainable development. Notable films include Bombay: Our City (1985), In Memory of Friends (1990), In the Name of God (1992), Father, Son, and Holy War (1995), A Narmada Diary (1995), War and Peace (2002) and Jai Bhim Comrade (2011), Reason (2018), and The World is Family (2023), which have won national and international awards.
Memories of Underdevelopment is a 1968 Cuban drama film directed and co-written by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea. The story is based on a novel by Edmundo Desnoes entitled Inconsolable Memories. It was Gutiérrez Alea's fifth film, and probably his most famous worldwide.
Edmundo Desnoes was a Cuban writer and author of the novel Memorias del subdesarrollo, a complex story depicting the alienation of a Cuban bourgeois intellectual struggling to adapt to the process of the Revolution staying on the island after his family decides to leave the country. He originally called the work Inconsolable Memories in the first English edition. The book was adapted in 1968 into the seminal Cuban film of the same title Memorias del Subdesarrollo by the director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, the name by which it is also known in English.
Red Cockroaches is a film released in 2003. This feature film was the debut production of Miguel Coyula and was the result of a two-year effort on a $2,000 budget. Shot entirely using a portable digital camcorder and edited on a home computer, Red Cockroaches is an example of DIY cinema. In its review, Variety called it a "A triumph of technology in the hands of a visionary with know-how..." It is the first of a trilogy which continues with Blue Heart (film).
Clase Z "Tropical"(Class Z Tropical) is a Cuban short film directed by Miguel Coyula. The film is a parody of Hollywood's action blockbusters using the typical trailer of a B-movie. The director deconstructs action melodrama formulas using the structure of a trailer. The movie contains frantic pacing, use of split screens, and dark humor, and the short gained notable popularity in Cuban Film Festivals where Coyula won several awards. The short is 6 minutes long and has been aired on Cuban TV Shows several times since its release in 2000. Coyula described the film a part of a series of experiments in genre the director made before completing the feature length Red Cockroaches.
Jorge Luis Sánchez is a Cuban film director. He was a founder of the Federación Nacional de Cine Clubes de Cuba - the Nacional Federation of Cine Clubs of Cuba.
Emiliano Torres is an Argentine film director, screenplay writer and producer.
Kathia J. Rodriguez Rosario is an actress with a key role in Miguel Coyula's latest film Memorias del Desarrollo.
Pavel Giroud is a Cuban film director based in Madrid, Spain.
Eduardo Montes-Bradley is a documentary filmmaker known for Evita, Rita Dove: An American Poet, and Harto The Borges. His most recent films are Black Fiddlers and Daniel Chester French: American Sculptor He’s currently working on The Italian Factor: The Piccirilli Story.
Juan Carlos Tabío was a Cuban film director and screenwriter. His film Strawberry and Chocolate (1994), which he co-directed with Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, won a Silver Bear - Special Jury Prize at the 44th Berlin International Film Festival. He was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He collaborated with director and close friend Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and actors Jorge Perugorría, Vladimir Cruz and Mirta Ibarra in several films.
Chilean cinema refers to all films produced in Chile or made by Chileans. It had its origins at the start of the 20th century with the first Chilean film screening in 1902 and the first Chilean feature film appearing in 1910. The oldest surviving feature is El Húsar de la Muerte (1925), and the last silent film was Patrullas de Avanzada (1931). The Chilean film industry struggled in the late 1940s and in the 1950s, despite some box-office successes such as El Diamante de Maharajá. The 1960s saw the development of the "New Chilean Cinema", with films like Three Sad Tigers (1968), Jackal of Nahueltoro (1969) and Valparaíso mi amor (1969). After the 1973 military coup, film production was low, with many filmmakers working in exile. It increased after the end of the Pinochet regime in 1989, with occasional critical and/or popular successes such as Johnny cien pesos (1993), Historias de Fútbol (1997) and Gringuito (1998).
Memories of Overdevelopment is a 2010 Cuban film. Written and directed by Miguel Coyula, the story is based on a novel by Edmundo Desnoes, also the author of the 1968 classic Memories of Underdevelopment. This independent film was produced by David Leitner and features Cuban actor Ron Blair as the lead character. It is the first Cuban dramatic feature film with scenes filmed both in Cuba and the United States. After its world premiere at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, it garnered several awards and honors. The International Film Guide described it as one of the best films Cuba has produced.
Maren Ade is a German film director, screenwriter and producer. Ade lives in Berlin, teaching screenwriting at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg. Together with Janine Jackowski and Jonas Dornbach, she runs the production company Komplizen Film. She is best known for her film Toni Erdmann, which was nominated for an Academy Award.
Luz also known as Luz: The Flower of Evil or Luz, la flor del mal is a 2019 fantasy-western horror film written and directed by Juan Diego Escobar Alzate, featuring Yuri Vargas in the lead role. In October 2019, it was a contender in the Official Fantastic Competition at the SITGES Fantastic Film Festival in Spain. The film gained international recognition as it was part of numerous international film festivals, including the Glasgow Film Festival, Indiecork, Nocturna Madrid, Almería Western Film Festival, Horrible Imaginings, Fantaspoa, Insólito and Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre, among others. It garnered accolades for Best Iberoamerican Film, Best Photography, Best Editing, and Best Acting at various festivals. 'Luz: The Flower of Evil' also clinched the prestigious Silver Skull Award at the Morbido Film Fest in Mexico, marking its Latin American Premiere.
The Havana Film Festival New York (HFFNY) is a film festival, based in New York City, that screens cinema from across Latin America with a special focus on Cuba and its film industry. It is a project of The American Friends of the Ludwig Foundation of Cuba, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization with the mission of building cultural bridges between the United States and Cuba through arts projects.
Blue Heart is a 2021 independent sci-fi Cuban film directed, written and produced by Miguel Coyula, starring Lynn Cruz, Carlos Gronlier and Héctor Noas. The film premiered at the 2021 Moscow International Film Festival. It has played at film festivals like BAFICI Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema, and the Guadalajara International Film Festival, among others.
Guapo'y is a 2022 documentary film written, directed and co-produced by Sofía Paoli Thorne in her directorial debut. It is about the pain suffered by Celsa Ramírez, an artist, mother and fighter who was a victim of repression during the Estronista dictatorship in Paraguay. It is a co-production between Paraguay, Argentina and Qatar.
Chronicles of the Absurd is a 2024 Cuban documentary film directed by Miguel Coyula. It held its world premiere at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam where it won the award for Best Film at the Envision Competition.
