The International Festival of New Latin American Cinema brought several surprises to San Antonio de los Baños. The most important was the recognition of the Heads of State and Government of Latin America to the International Film and Television School (EICTV).
It is not a matter of names or geography that the school is associated with the Ariguanabo. It's that its workers are from here. It is the place where more movies are filmed in Cuba and where students look for scenes. It is the community where teachers from all over the world are linked; and the hands that helped to raise that center, that "utopia" like Fidel, Fernando Birri and Gabriel García Márquez called it. This relationship is not appreciated in all its magnitude and intensity, nor do we suspect that San Antonio de los Baños is a key element in the Ibero-American cultural mosaic.
In countries like Costa Rica or Guatemala, where there were movies, but not cinematography; In nations that did not even dream of making their first film, like Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize or Barbados, today the reality is different thanks to the International Film and Television School.
At the same time, there is an audience eager to see our art, that knows its works and talks with its creators. This breaks the colonial schemes and the hegemonic culture, an art determined to demonstrate the greatness, wealth and wonders of the imperial countries and the poverty and lack of solution of these former colonies. Cinema, music and consumer fashions are the weapons of the permanent cultural war against the third world, and especially Latin America. The EICTV has been a cultivator of conscience and energy for a new and liberating art.
The presidents of the hemisphere, meeting in Colombia in November 2016, recognized the work of this school "as a center of training and excellence at the service of creators and filmmakers linked to the film industry and Ibero-American television."
With this recognition, San Antonio de los Baños is proud and honored, because the International Film and Television School has the essence of Ariguanabo.