March: Francophonie Month in Cuba

The month of March in Cuba will be composed of artistic and cultural actions brought by the Francophonie Day to celebrate in Havana, Matanzas and Santiago de Cuba, the 50th anniversary of the birth of the International Organization of La Francophonie.

In a press conference, at the Prado Palace of the French Alliance, Marc Sagaert, general director of the French Alliance of Cuba; Eric Chaux, Counselor of Cooperation and Cultural Activities of the French Embassy; Laurence Beaulieu-Morency, second secretary of Political Affairs of the Canadian Embassy, ​​and Suzette Ferras, of the Quebec office in Havana, presented the day's program.

The library of the Wallonia showcase will maintain throughout the month the bibliographical sample French Cartoon, which highlights the contributions of that country to the ninth art, in line with the declaration of 2020, by the French Ministry of Culture, as the Year of Cartoon.

In this place, from Monday 9 until Wednesday 11, the Workshop «Kronikas-The Imaginary Inventory» will be held, aimed at cartoonists, illustrators, designers and artists of the plastic, and on 17 at ten in the morning, will take place an exchange between the Belgian sculptor Claire Kirkpatrick with young students of the ISA and San Alejandro, with a view to future collaborations.

The Cuban Art Factory (FAC) plays an important role in this cultural day because it will host several of the musical presentations that have been planned; on Thursday 5 at ten o'clock at night, Growing gifs, Maxlab Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Antwerp research project, in Belgium, will offer an improvised audiovisual show directed by Janna Beck, in which Belgian and Cuban artists will combine the drawing digital with projections and music interpreting the sounds of the environment with drawings and creating a visual dialogue.

At FAC, on Friday 20th there will be the Swiss-Brazilian duo «GreenWoman» (Malcolm Braff, piano & electronics; Claire Huguenin, voice) working on the convergence between ecology and feminism, and on the following night will be the performance of the Trio Django by Théo Ceccaldi.

On the 11th, at seven o'clock at night, three musicians of the Belgian group INFLUX of the Musiques & Recherches label, of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation (Belgium), will perform 12 pieces at the Spring Festival in Havana 2020, at the National Museum of Fine arts.

There are several proposals of the event in terms of visual arts; on the 12th at five in the afternoon at the Wallonia Showcase will be the opening of the exhibition "Eugenia or Rita: The power of the name",  by the Cuban cartoonist Alexander Izquierdo Plasencia, and on the 16th, at the same time, in the House Víctor Hugo, will be inaugurated the exhibition of ten Cuban artists «Common Universes» in homage to the 15th anniversary of that institution.

On the 18th, at three in the afternoon, at the Napoleonic Museum, the renowned Cuban designer Ismael de la Caridad will exhibit a collection of costumes that he has made from the contemporary reinterpretation of the 19th century French Empire fashion, with exclusive designs that combine the colonial gown and the imperial dress.

In the great hall of this institution, the next day, at ten o'clock in the morning, will be the presentation of the Catalog of the Painting Collection entitled: "Napoleon in the painting of the Napoleonic Museum", the result of an investigation that has deepened on the images of the military genius treasures the museum and demonstrations once again the great value and scope of them.

The terrace of the Prado Palace of the French Alliance of Havana, will be the stage for a rock concert with the Rockiñol group, on Tuesday 17 at seven in the evening. In this same space, the next day, at the same time, an exhibition «Anticorrosive painting» will begin, with works by Cuban artist Yamir Izquierdo Ramos.

Canadian artist of Haitian descent Waahli will be part of the cast of the seventh edition of the Havana World Music Festival. This musician is one of the main members of the massive nomadic multicultural Hip Hop group; It offers an organic mix of hip-hop with strong Haitian and Afro-Caribbean influences.

On Friday 20th, at eleven o'clock in the morning, the Embassy of the Dominican Republic joins the Francophonie day, as Dr. Pedro Ureña Rib, Minister Counselor, of that diplomatic headquarters will give a conference on the French Caribbean and its gastronomy, in the Prado Palace.

Later, at three o'clock, at the Victor Hugo House, the panel «France-Belgium: fashion, reinterpretation and contributions» will be held, which will address Franco-Belgian fashion and its influence on various cultural and artistic aspects.

This day also, but at six in the afternoon and in the Ignacio Cervantes Hall, of the Prado Palace of the Marriages, the Cuban instrumental group Habana XXI, founded by Master Nathalie Marin, conductor of French orchestra, under the direction of the Cuban musician César Eduardo Ramos will give a concert with pieces by great French composers.

An important panel will be held in the Manuel Galich Room House of the Americas on the 26th at ten in the morning: «The Francophone culture of les Amériques et dans le monde», with the participation of specialists, representatives of Belgium, Canada, Congo , and Haiti, and will have as a guest the Cuban writer, National Prize for Literature Nancy Morejón.

From Wednesday 18 to Sunday 29 March, the film show of the Francophonie Day will take place in Cuba, with daily performances at seven o'clock at La Rampa cinema in the capital.

The film program is made up by seven fiction feature films, two animated feature films for adults and a documentary, all of which are premieres in Cuba except Hochelaga, Terre des âmes, (2017), by director François Girard, made in Québec, and which premieres at the Cinemateca.

In addition, on Friday 27 at four thirty in the afternoon, the film Los lobos (Les loups) (2014) by the director Sophie Deraspe, a Québec-France co-production, in the Cinema workshop Jean Renoir of the French Alliance of Havana; the presenters will be Johanne Desnoyers, Director of the Quebec Office in Havana and Antonio Mazón, Coordinator of the Jean Renoir Workshop and programmer of the Cinemateca de Cuba.

In Santiago de Cuba, numerous actions that combine Cuban and Francophone culture have also been conceived, and representatives from Canada will be honored guests at the 18th Edition of the Santiago Álvarez in memoriam International Documentary Festival.

The program in Matanzas emphasizes theoretical actions that analyze and highlight the French footprint in that province.

Undoubtedly, the Francophonie Day in Cuba is a celebration of cultural knowledge and historical memory, a good time to strengthen the already existing bonds of friendship.