Cuban documentary film wins Grand Prize at International Festival

The documentary film "Una manera de existir" (A Way of Existing), a story of the Sierra Maestra mountain range, won Grand Prize at the 20th edition of the Santiago Alvarez In Memoriam International Documentary Festival, which has been held in this eastern city since March 3.

The 33-minute documentary, directed by Lenia Saniut Tejera, was top winner of the event.

The first place went to “Sonic fantasy,” by Marcos Cabotá, from Spain, and “Nowhere,” by Natalie Halla, from Austria-Spain, won the second prize.

The award-winning documentary pays tribute to the guerrilla that, led by Fidel Castro, defeated the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista (1952-1958).

The third prize was to the documentary film “Mañana con pentagrama de acero” (Tomorrow with a Steel Pentagram), by Cuban filmmaker Kenia Rodríguez.

The festival paid tribute to the 30th anniversary of Televisión Serrana and the 45th anniversary of the branch office of the National Association of Cuban Writers and Artists, along with the homage to the oldest documentary filmmaker, who would have turned 104 years old after an impressive legacy in Cuban and Latin American cinema