The Cuban film Habanastation by young director Ian Padron will premiere at the Traverse City Film Festival, founded by U.S. filmmaker Michael Moore.
Padron and actress Blanca Rosa Blanco, one of the stars of Habanastation, will be at the premiere, a one-time screening at the Lars Hockstand Auditorium in Traverse City, Michigan, for which tickets were sold out in advance.
Padron told reporters that he was expectant about the reaction of a U.S. audience, the first outside Cuba to see the film after its July 16 premiere in Havana.
With Andy Fornaris and Ernesto Escalona as its two co-stars, the film tells the story of two boys, Mayito and Carlos, classmates from different social backgrounds who are dazzled by the world of video games.
Habanastation is a co-production of the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC), the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT), and the children's theater company La Colmenita, which provided much of the film's cast.
After Traverse City, the film will participate in other film festivals in Europe.
Cuban singer songwriter Raul Torres dedicated one of his best-known songs on a concert to Argentinean composer and poet Facundo Cabral, who was murdered on Saturday in Guatemala.
“To that unforgettable voice I dedicate my song Candil de Nieve,” Torres said on his concert last Sunday.
He added: “Cabral will continue to be an unquestionable referent of the Latin American protest song, a source which we all have to provide from because of his intelligent and profound texts…he is an essential figure within the musical stave of the continent.”
In his over one-hour concert, Torres, who became famous in Cuba in the early 1990s for Candil de Nieve, sang pieces from his most recent record Fenix de Cristal.
He was accompanied on stage by a quartet made up of piano, guitar, bass and drums. 
After recording Candil de Nieve, featuring renowned Cuban singer songwriter Pablo Milanes, Torres became one of the most original voices of the Nueva Trova musical movement. His songs have been interpreted by Spanish Ana Belen and Joaquin Sabina, Brazilian Simone and Argentinean Fito Paez.
For more than 30 years, the San Francisco Girls Chorus has been recognized as one of the world’s most respected vocal ensembles. And now directed by Susan McMane and winner of five Grammy, will make its debut in Cuba on July 5 in the central city of Santa Clara.
San Francisco Girls Chorus was founded in 1978 in California, United States and is made up of adolescents aged between 13 and 17. The chorus provides an accessible, comprehensive music education and performance program that serves Bay Area girls from diverse cultural and economic backgrounds.
According to the program, the chorus whose program is founded on the highest standards of artistic excellence, will share the stage with the Professional Chorus of Villa Clara and the Coramartha Chamber Chorus. It will also star in the western provinces of Matanzas and Havana.
The tour will close on Friday 8 at the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in the capital municipality of Old Havana, where they will perform along with the National Chorus of Cuba and the Ensemble Vocal Luna, conducted by Digna Guerra and Wilmia Verrier, respectively.
San Francisco Girls Chorus won last year an award, shared with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, for the recording of the Eighth Symphony by Gustav Mahler and it has recorded 7 albums.
The Girls Chorus is invited annually to perform with musical organizations including San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Symphony, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and others.
The Cuban film Habanastation by young director Ian Padron will premiere at the Traverse City Film Festival, founded by U.S. filmmaker Michael Moore.
Padron and actress Blanca Rosa Blanco, one of the stars of Habanastation, will be at the premiere, a one-time screening at the Lars Hockstand Auditorium in Traverse City, Michigan, for which tickets were sold out in advance.
Padron told reporters that he was expectant about the reaction of a U.S. audience, the first outside Cuba to see the film after its July 16 premiere in Havana.
With Andy Fornaris and Ernesto Escalona as its two co-stars, the film tells the story of two boys, Mayito and Carlos, classmates from different social backgrounds who are dazzled by the world of video games.
Habanastation is a co-production of the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC), the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT), and the children's theater company La Colmenita, which provided much of the film's cast.
After Traverse City, the film will participate in other film festivals in Europe.
