Check out the Caribbean Cannes
Author by Alisha Fedulova
Interview with Omar de la Cruz. January 2022 by
January 2022, 14th Festival de Cine Global in Santo Domingo. We were a team from Russia – foreign guests at the most prominent international film festival in the Dominican Republic. learn more Reasons to visit Festival de Cine Global Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic
“Thank you for coming a long way from Russia. I hope I can make it over there in the future.” – Omar de la Cruz, film festival director, welcomed us sincerely and warmly. We were excited, planning international cultural projects and reveling in the local vibe and tropical winter. But on 24 February, a man-made tsunami hit, destroying cities, human connections, people, and hopes.
At that time, we were still in the Dominican Republic, but we were already thinking about nothing but the war that our country had started. We put the audio of the festival interviews on hold, pushing the idea of cultural collaborations with other countries even further away. We felt value differences with the motherland with any desires but to rewind time.
But anyone cannot stop time. A year passed, and the Dominican Republic was once again celebrating cinema. In January 2023, the Jubilee Festival de Cine Global opened, celebrating its Quinceañera – its 15th anniversary – a maturation period.
[Quinceañera is a traditional Latin American celebration of adulthood for girls, symbolizing the transition from adolescence to adulthood.]
“Our Festival is growing! We are the real Festival with many participants, guests, companies, and involved countries. We believe in cooperation. Cinema is the key to connecting people. It doesn’t matter what kind of language you speak.”
Here are excerpts from last year’s interview, ensuring that good messages and ideas are always relevant. Moreover, getting you to know the Festival’s creators is essential.
The Festival’s engine
The festival director Omar de la Cruz is energetic, friendly, and everywhere at once: he opens the evening gala screening, dances passionately with his wife at the after-party, and greets participants in the morning workshop the next day. And so it goes for all seven days of the Festival. He knows each of the several dozen guests by sight and name, cracking jokes and solving questions.
“I read each of the festival emails. My wife tells me I am crazy. But for me, it’s crucial because if we have a problem, I will know, and I can solve it.”
Omar de la Cruz is involved in all the processes. He is the Festival’s soul and is so inspiring. Even some criticism from the jury in 2022 about some organization points and small technical failures in the form of missing subtitles were not a problem but just isolated cases. The team and the director are determined to achieve a high result; therefore, they do not ignore the problems but solve them simultaneously.
Omar de la Cruz, Festival de Cine Global director
FIAPF recognition
In 2017 Festival de Cine Global was accredited by FIAPF, the International Federation of Film Producers Associations, as a competitive feature film festival specializing in debuts or Opera Prima.
It took Omar perseverance, unrelenting optimism, and long six years to achieve this status. It will be possible to write a full-length comedy-drama script about the Festival’s passing of FIAPF accreditation, similar to movies about restaurateurs and the Michelin star. It all came to fruition in 2017. At the Cannes Film Festival, also held under the aegis of FIAPF, Festival de Cine Global got its accreditation.
Festival de Cine Global was the first Caribbean representative among FIAPF participants and joined the cohort of top festivals, including Berlinale and Cannes.
Goals and benchmark
“There are several major film festivals in Latin America. The brightest is the Festival in Guadalajara, Mexico. Everyone wants to go there. Then there’s the Havana Film Festival and the Cartagena Festival. We are one of the top five festivals in Latin America and the biggest in the Caribbean. One of the goals and team’s dreams is to become the Caribbean Cannes. This is how we see the future of the Festival. That’s why we constantly improve, create ideas, and motivate people to come to us. We select quality films, organize seminars, global talks, so that guests and participants are together, communicate and develop cultural bonds.”
There were 700 entries for the 2022 festival, with no advertising or additional announcements. Acceptance of films was open for just one month through 2 festival platforms – Festhome and Movibeta.
“It was very emotional because many wanted to be at our film festival. Usually, there are 500 applicants in six months, sometimes 300-400. This year we had 700 in one month. That’s astonishing! But in the end, we only selected 98, including 31 short films and 67 documentaries.”
Meanwhile, in 2023, the Festival broke its last year’s record with over 800 submissions.
Film screenings at the Dominican Film Festival in 2023
A package solution
Film festivals, Omar is convinced, are not just about film. It is a holistic solution in the form of industry development and film education. It is new opportunities and jobs, but most importantly, an open dialogue between different social groups and countries. Culture and cinema are the keys to everything and the cure to avoid war. When you make a film and distribute it worldwide, it’s no longer just a film – it’s a country and people. It’s a direct message, an open palm.
“I’ll tell you the example of two countries, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. We share one island, and it’s a unique situation. The official news constantly assures us of complex relations between the countries, but the truth is that here, we have no problems between people. Haitians come to earn money to feed their families. We don’t care where they are from; we love them as they are part of us. To defuse tensions, you must learn more about the other country, be empathic, and get closer. We screened Freda by Gessica Généus from Haiti at the Festival. We showed the film three times, and there was a full house – people on the stairs and floor each time. It’s the best peacemaking mission and an act of friendship between peoples.”
[Freda] is a 2021 Haitian drama film directed by Gessica Geneus. The film was selected for the Un Certain Regard section of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in June 2021].
Focus by top officials
On 9 November 2006, the President of the Dominican Republic, Dr. Leonel Fernández, opened the first Festival de Cine Global de Santo Domingo, which became the most important film event in the Caribbean. He then announced that the Dominican Republic would become the new Mecca of Latin American cinema and that the Festival would be the platform for this.
Among the main objectives are to raise awareness, broaden visions of the world and stimulate the creative spirit. In his speech at the time, President Fernández said that the Festival would serve as a boost for the Dominican Republic, which is already on an “irreversible road to international recognition,” and that one of his government’s goals is to create an environment that allows film development in the Dominican Republic.
Since the launch of the Film Festival, the President of the Republic has spurred the creation of a film law to promote local filmmakers. As a result, the Dominican Film Act was approved in November 2010. With its help, many national productions received the financial support they needed to bring them to fruition.
According to FCGSD director Omar de la Cruz, the Festival combined determination and effort to make the Dominican Republic more visible in the international film industry.
“It is at the festival that Dominican producers, directors, and actors connect and interact with filmmakers from other regions and create synergies to develop projects in the country with the support of the Film Act.”
Fortunately for the country, the loud slogans from the press releases have become a reality. As a result, the Festival’s founding team wisely tuned the industry, and cinema became one of the drivers of the Dominican Republic’s economy from entertainment. The country became attractive to film investors and filmmakers from other countries.
Leonel Fernández, already in the status of ex-president, opens the film festival every year. It was in 2022 during our visit and was the same in 2023. He is open to conversation, doesn’t hide behind a fence of guards, and doesn’t demand agreement on issues. But most importantly, he genuinely believes, demonstrated by his actions, that cultural engagement is the key to the country’s attractiveness.
Leonel Fernández, ex-President of the Dominican Republic at the 2023 film festival awards ceremony
If you are a filmmaker from the US, Europe, or any other region, consider visiting and participating in the Dominican Festival. It’s worth doing!
Festival website https://tamoencine.org/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/tamoencinerd/
