Cuban filmmaker Daniel Ross achieved an unprecedented feat for Cuban cinematography, after his work The Wait won an award at the Cannes World Film Festival, a new festival dedicated to the best of global independent cinema.
The filmmaker, originally from Guantanamo, created the first film made entirely locally, with actors, soundtrack, history and settings from the Cuban province.
The main location of the work is the house of the poet Regino E. Boti, whose grandson, Regino Rodríguez Boti, has the leading role, while the direction and script are in charge of Ross himself.
On the soundtrack, the film brings together all the native rhythms of the endemic and traditional music of Guantánamo, including El changüí, El nengón, El kiriba, El aeroplano, La guanaja, La puntillita, La cañandonga, as well as sones and trovas of Guantanamo artists.
The film won the award for Best Drama Feature Film, in the third 2023 edition of the festival, which has been broadcast annually since 2020, in addition to monthly mentions.
According to the synopsis, the story follows Regino, an isolated man who faces extreme loneliness, and whose circumstances and the place in which he lives, as well as the loss of everything he loves, will lead him to make a radical decision.
The Wait It was launched at the Yale Latino and Ibero-American Festival in the United States, last November, its first international event.
Subsequently, it was presented at the Lift-Off Global Network International Film Festival, in the United Kingdom, and at the Eagle Eyes International Film Festival, where it won the Best International Film award in January of this year.
Daniel Ross Dieguez, born in Guantánamo, on December 3, 1986, is a Cuban visual artist and filmmaker, known for his experimental work, which brings together realistic elements and investigations of Cuban society, and combines them with fiction.
He graduated from the Guantánamo Academy of Plastic Arts in 2005, as a Plastic Artist specializing in Engraving and Painting, at the José Martí Memorial in Havana.
By 2009, he founded StudioRoss DaRoDe, an independent production company through which he makes most of his content.
His first audiovisual work was the animated short film in stop-motion, Everything happenswhile his first fictional short film with actors, The Ferris Wheelwas positioned in the most important national film festivals in Cuba.
About the Cannes World Festival, it is held in this French city, and is dedicated to independent cinema from all latitudes, announced by the IMDb film platform.
Its second annual ceremony, 2022-2023, is scheduled to take place on June 16, where the winning films of each category will be exhibited.
