The 'Honorary Award' of the 'Lanzarote Film Festival 2023' will be given to the 'International School of Film and Television of San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba'. For its critical, valuable and fundamental contribution to the history of cinema. The director of the Festival, Javier Fuentes Feo, has pointed out that with the election of the 'School of Film and Television of San Antonio de los Baños', which has been attended by many Canarian film professionals, "we continue to pay tribute to all those trades, institutions or people who are an essential part of the film ecosystem. Without their fundamental contribution, cinema could not exist or would do so in a much poorer way."
The award, which once again consists of a bottle of special wine from the El Grifo winery, will be collected at the awards ceremony by the School's distinguished professor, Francisco López Álvarez. The choice of this wine, an 'Experiencia de Vendimia: Listán negro Grano a Grano' selected vintage, shelled by hand and trodden by foot, refers to the project's desire to celebrate the existence of cinema and its capacity to generate knowledge.
It was December 1985 and in Cuba, at the founding of the San Antonio de los Baños School of Film and Television, was, among others, the Nobel Prize for Literature, Gabriel García Márquez. He himself summed up the dream he had for that place: "to achieve the integration of Latin American cinema. As simple as that and as disproportionate as that."
Later, this center was also called the School of the Three Worlds (Asia, Africa and Latin America), because of its vocation to be a reference in these continents where cinematography found more difficulties than in Europe or the United States. It is one of the most prestigious centers in the world, conceived in the words of its founders "to strengthen the aesthetic level and technical skills, in addition to imbuing an ethical concept, a critical vision of the world, a capacity to dream, a utopia, a deep concern for the fate of the species and a clear opposition to barbarism, injustice and oppression."
The '13th Lanzarote Film Festival' is organized by the non-profit association Tenique Cultural and is sponsored by the Cabildo de Lanzarote, the Lanzarote Foreign Promotion Society through its product brand 'Lanzarote Film Commission', the Centers of Art, Culture and Tourism and the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts of Spain.
