The 46th Havana Film Festival proceeds with lights and screenings in El Vedado, contrasting sharply with widespread blackouts across the city. Attendees describe a surreal divide between the festival's glow and the darkness of everyday life. Official narratives highlight cultural resilience, while critics point to underlying crises.
The 46th Havana International Film Festival takes place amid frequent blackouts affecting much of the Cuban capital. While streets in neighborhoods like Guanabacoa, Regla, and Luyanó remain dark, the El Vedado area, the main venue, features lighting, music, and screens. A film enthusiast describes the journey to the festival as "a sequence from Death of a Bureaucrat," and upon arrival, feels like entering "a set trying to say ‘everything is fine,’ but the editing cut fools no one".
Screenings have been interrupted by power failures, such as the Brazilian film Secret Agent at the Yara cinema, which ended abruptly. From exile, filmmaker Carlos Lechuga criticizes the situation: "The country is sick, without hospitals, the electric system collapsed, thousands of places across Cuba without water. Zero hygiene. Nothing to eat. Prices through the roof and salaries are laughable. The country dollarized and people earning in pesos." He concludes: "They have destroyed Cuba".
The opening included messages of support for Venezuela and Nicolás Maduro, a political gesture some consider out of place. First Lady Lis Cuesta defended the event on X as proof of the "luminous resistance of Cuban culture," with 2,200 works from 42 countries, of which 222 are shown. She mentioned income from registration fees of about $15,000 and generators installed in Project 23 cinemas, plus mobile screens for communities. A user replied: "No bread, but circus. Will the screenings be done in rotating blocks, like the blackouts?".
Cinemas fill up for Cuban films or premieres, but foreign classics like Mecánica Nacional draw only about 50 viewers, many for the air conditioning. In front of the Chaplin, there is nightly music; Arnaldo y su Talismán opened without performing Don’t Let the Little Light Go Out, which one spectator joked would be an ideal anthem. The festival reflects cultural deterioration in a country with crumbling infrastructure and an arbovirus epidemic, similar to the November Havana Theater Festival, criticized by Norge Espinosa as mediocre and forgettable. At the end of each night, spectators return to their dark neighborhoods, improvising survival in a reality that devours fiction.