First projections
Almost at the place where Ignacio Agramonte Street (formerly Estrada Palma) and the Plaza de los Trabajadores meet, the city's first cinema was located. On that site there is currently a themed restaurant called La Isabela, where diners sit in chairs of famous directors, while iconic movie posters decorate the installation. There you can taste mainly Italian food and if you arrive early you may choose Fellini's chair or Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's.
Best actors
Isabel Santos (Camagüey, September 4, 1961) is an actress from Camagüey who has developed an intense and successful career in television, theater, radio and cinema.
This versatile actress has been the protagonist of several of the best films in the history of Cuban cinema. She has an enormous talent for unfolding and taking on difficult roles in intense dramas (La vida es silbar, La pared de las palabras), as well as being charming in comedies such as the highly praised Se permuta. She has developed an extensive career in television, where she has appeared in several of the most recognized soap operas (Algo más que soñar, Pasión y prejuicio) and has also directed documentaries among which are: “San Ernesto nace en la Higuera”, “Viaje al país que ya no existe”, “El camino de la vida”, “La Gloria City” and “Gente de pueblo”.
Among the essentials is also the actor Héctor Hechemendía, who has participated in films such as “La Bella del Alhambra”, “El Brigadista”, “Una Mujer, un hombre, una ciudad” or “Amor Vertical”.
Cinemas street
The Thematic Film Walk was inaugurated on February 4, 2014, in the midst of the commemorations for the 500 years of the founding of the former Villa de Santa María del Puerto del Príncipe. The construction of this promenade was intended to pay tribute to the importance of universal cinema in more than 100 years of existence. Located on Ignacio Agramonte Street, from Maceo to Independencia, it is the only one of its kind in Cuba, and constitutes a cultural, academic and tourist proposal offered by the city of Camagüey, to highlight the most distinctive of the cinematographic universe of America and the world.
In this segment, the cinematographic tradition and new technologies are combined in a kind of space for leisure and academics; as a curious fact it should be noted that all the entities have been named with the title of a movie. The Cinematographic Complex comprises around twenty cultural, recreational and commercial facilities, including El callejón de los Milagros, an allusion to the Mexican film directed in 1995 by Jorge Fons (Goya award for the best Ibero-American film), and based in the homonymous novel by Naguib Mahfuz.
In this area there is also the bar Casablanca, with photographs that refer to “black cinema”, a site designed in the likeness of Rick's Café, the main character played by Humphrey Bogart in the film Casablanca, along with Ingrid Bergman. Also part of Calle de los Cines are the Casablanca multiplex cinema, the Nuevo Mundo Audiovisual Complex (previously called the Nuevo Mundo Video room, created in 1985 and the first of its kind in the country), the Encanto cinema (CEDIM), the Fotograma Cultural Center and the Lumière Video Library.
The entire complex is a platform for meetings such as the National Film Critics Workshop or the International Video Art Festival of Camagüey, as well as exchanges with great audiovisual personalities and special presentations of Latin American films and from other regions of the world. Some Cuban film premieres have taken place in its theaters.
The main purpose of this cultural site is to generate network and transmedia thinking, taking advantage of the existing free WiFi in the Paseo del Cine, according to statements by researcher and film critic Juan Antonio García Borrero, main promoter of the Project to promote the audiovisual culture El Callejón de los Milagros
Films made in Camagüey
Several films have been filmed in the city or in areas of the province of Camagüey: Kangamba, Pablo, La Hoja de la Caleta and El Mayor, the latter still unreleased.
ENDAC Website
The Digital Encyclopedia of Cuban Audiovisual (ENDAC), a platform that can be accessed interactively, was officially presented at the celebrations for the 506th anniversary of the city last February of this year 2020, its creator, the critic and Camagüey researcher Juan Antonio García Borrero, affirms that he began to “work on the Cuban Audiovisual Encyclopedia as if it were an extension of the Critical Guide of Cuban Fiction Cinema. However, as the project progressed, it was easy for him to detect that it is no longer possible to think and articulate the History of Cuban cinema in the same way we did twenty years ago.
The Encyclopedia, unlike the Critical Guide…, >“tries to propose a story that does not remain in the frozen register of the images we see on the screen, but rather explores the connections established between films, technologies, the economic, political, and cultural contexts, as well as the most intimate settings where individuals make audiovisual consumption a systematic practice””.
“ Imagine all that information that lies scattered in hundreds of books that talk about Cuban cinema, contained in a single digital platform that can be accessed and contributed from anywhere on the planet, through a computer, laptop, or any device. (tablet, phone, etc) that allows you to connect to the Internet. With the advantage, in addition, that the Encyclopedia of Cuban Audiovisual could be downloaded, consulted and debated offline. Being conceived as a Wiki publication that uses free software, the Encyclopedia allows the interactive construction of knowledge, according to the most contemporary modes of communication”.
García Borrero concludes that the “ Cuban Audiovisual Encyclopedia can function as a repository, but above all as an investigative source where ideas and debates flow from a technological interaction that will allow us to move through space and time in an always dynamic and unpredictable way. As it happens in life itself”
Movie events
The city hosts two major events related to cinema: The National Film Criticism Workshop , every year, and the International Video Art Festival of Camagüey (FIVAC), every two years.
In addition, the Hermanos Saíz Association carries out the Almacén de la Imagen an event to promote young film makers every year, and the New Technologies Event, also takes place, under the tutelage of the Project for the Promotion of Audiovisual Culture “El Callejón de los Milagros”, led by the aforementioned Juan Antonio García Borrero.
Movie Theaters
In the province of Camagüey, more than 50 movie theaters came into operation, only in the main city they provided that service in unison up to 10 theaters. Currently, only the multiplex cinema Casablanca and Nuevo Mundo are operating for this purpose, while the three-dimensional projections take place in El Circuito, the largest 3D theater in the country.
Multicine Casablanca
Ignacio Agramonte No 428 e/ República y Lope Recio.
(53) 32292244
Cine El Circuito
Ignacio Agramonte No.410 / República y Lope Recio. Camagüey. Camagüey
(53) 32256651
Complejo Audiovisual Nuevo Mundo
Ignacio Agramonte No.422 e/ República y Lope Recio. Camagüey. Camagüey
(53) 32251959