Gibara International Film Festival 2017- my photos

thank you Bob...excellent photos and looks like a fun festival..

Great stuff, Bob. Looks like a gas.

I have got to make this next year. I'll sleep with Candy so there's a casa room available for you... ;-)

Cheers,
Terry

Thanks Bob. Hard to visualise the Gibara we know from all our visits during the other 51 weeks of the year.
Colour fotos!

Hey Bob, great fotos. There are a few familiar looking shots.
Yeah too bad that we couldn't meet up because Ginger was about 20 hours late showing up from Havana.

I found the film festival to be disappointing but this could be due to my timing (arrived late friday night) and possibly the weather. The quiet Gibara that I had visited a couple of times before was a really lively place though, but other than some film posters and some celerities at the hotel (like I care about that kind of rubbish) there seemed to be little evidence of a film festival going on and alot of the typical Cuban drunk fest going on. Nothing wrong with that but been there, done that, and was looking for something different where I could check out a few Cuban films new and old but that never happened.

Cine Pobre would have been to my liking from what I have heard of it but I guess that has changed and now and according to the CNN piece that I watched previously in my hotel room. Cuba's "Poor" Film Festival Goes Hollywood

Sorry to be negative but that was my experience.

Thanks for the CNN link. Good to see they didn't pronounce it GEEEEbarra.
Where did you stay whilst there?

The CNN piece was done by Patrick Oppmann, the CNN Havana bureau chief. Nice guy. We spent some time talking on and off during the event. Interesting to hear his stage voice when in reality he is basically a good ole boy from the south.

I stayed in a brand new casa, first visitor. It was arranged by an old friend of Yordanka's who has the casa we sometimes stay in but was already booked. Interesting being first customer and suggesting to your casa host what is normally done.

CW: the whole event was definitely winding down by the time you arrived. Many films shown during the week but more from other countries than Cuban. On Saturday, the conference in Holguin that Yordanka was presenting at ended up making a field trip to Gibara mid day. She said everything seemed pretty much over.

Terry: in my dreams.

I had a lot of regrets not making it this year after all the years previous, but Confirmation sponsorship and Church obligations here negated that.

The even bigger news is that now Gibara has been declared a tourist destination by FIT Cuba with the backing of the same offshore conglomerate that runs Playa Pesquero Hotel at Guardlavaca...a fancy shmancy high end hotel.

They have cleaned up Playa Nene by the new boat dock, the new Hotel Colon with swimming pool is open, adding to Ordono and Arsenita, they are opening a new open air seafood restaurant right on the bay by the dock, even the bloody Mayabe donkey is there, swilling beer for a buck.(Historical note about that damn burro: About 18 years ago a bunch of my Canadian mates- my "mules" who ferried down hundreds of pairs of glasses, ashsma inhalators (sp?), surgical supplies, etc. went to the Mayabe beer plant in Holguin. One of them (Rick) plopped down $100 US- it was when you still used US currency- and asked "How much can that donkey drink?" "No sabe-I don't know" said its owner. So Rick and the donkey go at it , beer to beer. They started around 11 am. At 4pm, the donkey could not stand up. His front end was on the ground, his rear end in the air. Rick drank two more and we left. Final tally: Pancho the donkey: 42. Rick: 44. I kid you not. I still have the little notepad with the tally. From then on in, Rick was known as Pancho (He's a big guy with an even bigger tank) and he would walk down the streets of Holguin and everyone knew of him. The donkey died a year later of liver disease. Rick lost a couple of toes since to diabetes which is now under control and he doesn't drink as much.

But I digress...back to Gibara

They have three, little three-car trains to take the chubby Yumas around town, almost every building within a five block radius of the main drag has been repaired and painted and a host of new Casas are opening. (there goes the barrio) .Busloads of tourists are coming in, there are even beach chaise lounges on the playas!

Dozens of new jobs for locals. Thus far the jineteros haven't kept pace.

I think I have lived the Halcion days of Gibara. Five years ago when I threw a 50th anniversary party for my Cuban "brother" and his late wife, a guy that was running the El Faro, where the party was, said he was a former tourism Minister for Cuba and had been assigned the task of turning Gibara into a tourist destination

I scoffed. Now it has become reality.

The even bigger news is that now Gibara has been declared a tourist destination by FIT Cuba with the backing of the same offshore conglomerate that runs Playa Pesquero Hotel at Guardlavaca...a fancy shmancy high end hotel.
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I think I have lived the Halcion days of Gibara............... said he was a former tourism Minister for Cuba and had been assigned the task of turning Gibara into a tourist destination

I scoffed. Now it has become reality.

Candy: on a selfish personal level, I must sadly agree with you. I am trying to feel good about catching the last few years of Gibara good times (at least for me) and not feel too bad about those days coming to an end. At least I will keep coming back, including the film festival, until the tourist horde gets to me.

Bob: Where I usually hang out, there are still people that stare at me who have never seen a tourist. Houses down little alleyways with no names, hard beaten paths, houses with no indoor plumbing, dirt floors, neighbours sharing one fridge. Recreation is of the best kind: sitting in the back yard on a little stool under the lime tree, drinking home made beer, cleaning rice and garlic, washing baby in the washtub with water heated on the fire, trying to shave with a knife. Not for the faint of heart but you know what it is like

Doubt the hordes will make it there. Too much dirt, bugs and lack of the so called luxuries of life, but closer to God all the while