The Leo Brouwer Festival of Chamber Music concluded at the Covarrubias Hall of Havana's Teatro Nacional, with a homage concert to the Nicolas family.
Clara Romero De Nicola (1888-1951), emblematic name of the island's best music star, began her career in the 30s of last decade "to place the guitar as a national instrument," Leo Brouwer stated.
"In a modest but amazing repertoire, this time the guitar played an important role, proving the beauty and strength of its sonority in the hands of Cuban Marco Tamayo and Spanish Anabel Montesinos. They performed "El libro de los signos" (The Book of Signs) along with the Chamber Orchestra of Havana.
Leading for a first time this new group of youth, Brouwer premiered this piece in three movements in this Festival. The work was composed by him in 2003 at the request of Costas Cotsiolis and John Williams.
The "Todo Brouwer" concert also included the performance of flautist Niurka Gonzalez, who as a soloist performed "Balada para flauta y orquesta de cuerdas" (Ballad for flute and strings 
orchestra) (1963), a work dedicated to composer Felix Guerrero and flautist Roberto Ondina.
As a culmination of the festival, cellist Alejandro Martinez, member of the Chamber Orchestra of Havana, received a recognition due to his talent and professional dedication.
The Leo Brouwer Festival, starting September 30 in four Havana stages, included a theoretical and musical program, where some of the works performed in the five concerts were presented for a first time, as well as paid tribute to outstanding Cuban musicians such as pianist Chucho Valdes and choral director Maria Felicia Perez.
The president of the Villa del Cine Foundation, Venezuelan filmmaker Jose Antonio Varela, said that the movie ties between his country and Cuba are moving forward with several joint projects. Two of them are animated films Caporito, el guardian de la montaña and Samuel H2O, whose set designs, photography and music are performed in the Animation Studios of the Cuban Film Institute.
This is the first experience with animated films in the history of Venezuela, Varela said in a press briefing to mark the opening in Cuba of his first work La Clase (2007). The exchange between both countries grew in recent times also with other co-productions, some successfully released as Boleto al Paraiso, by Gerardo Chijona, Larga Distancia, by Esteban Insausti, and Casa Vieja, by Lester Hamlet.
We maintain a systematic cooperation in the audiovisual field said the filmmaker after, and added that this reciprocity is extended to the distribution and exhibition of films between the two countries.
The Cuban children’s theater company, La Colmenita, directed by Carlos Alberto Cremata, will travel to the United States this month for presentations in Washington, New York and San Francisco.
The tour’s program, scheduled for October 12 through 30, includes the play La Cenicienta según los Beatles (Cinderella after the Beatles), where audiences will have the chance to assess how children see the famous band which had such a strong impact on the US and the world. The play is adapted to current Cuban reality.
Another piece to be staged is Abracadabra, which enables the public to see how children see today’s Cuba and the situation of the five Cuban antiterrorists unjustly locked in US jails for fighting terrorism.
The play is based on texts written by Alicia Jrapko, Mario Benedetti and Nazim Hikmet featuring music (sung live by the children actors) by Silvio Rodriguez, Carlos Puebla, Fito Paez, Joseito Fernandez and Los Van Van.
The Cuban children’s theater group La Colmenita is Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
Cuban film Habanastation, directed by Ian Padron, was chosen to represent this country for a 2012 Oscar nomination in the category of Best Foreign Language Film.
An awards committee of the Cuban Film Institute, composed of filmmakers Fernando Perez (Suite Havana) and Manuel Perez (Pages from Mauricio's diary) and the editor Manuel Iglesias (El Benny), was responsible for the selection, according to provisions in the rules of the Academy of the Oscar Award.
Starred by children Andy Fornaris and Ernesto Escalona, Habanastation has accumulated successes within and outside the country since its release in past July and Cuban critics described it as the most important film event of the year.
Awarded at the Traverse City Festival in Michigan, founded by Michael Moore and applauded at a screening in Miami, Habanastation tells the story of two classmates, members of a social and family environment very different, who begin a beautiful friendship from their enthusiasm for video games.
Since early September began arriving at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of the United States the various films that will compete in the foreign film section.
The five official candidates in this section will be announced on January 24, 2012 in Los Angeles.
Cuba will also enter the fray for a candidacy to the Goya Awards of the Spanish Academy, with the film Tickets to Paradise, by Gerardo Chijona in the category of Best Spanish-speaking Foreign Film.
Inspired by five testimonies of the book Confessions to a physician, by Jorge Perez, the film addresses the story of five young people in extreme situations, whose fates are intertwined in the same story.
Tickets to Paradise was has been awarded the silver Biznaga, Latin House Award Film Festival in Malaga, Spain, and Havana Star for best film at the Havana Film Festival New York, United States, both in April 2011 .
The Cuban children's theater group La Colmenita will perform on Today in Brooklyn, the first of five performances in this city, as part of a tour of the United States until October 30. 
The company, comprised of 22 children aged between 6 and 15 years, arrived in New York shortly before midnight, after travelling over 300 kilometers (186 miles) from Washington DC. 
The recent performance in the capital was "tremendous, with a full theater. Most were the students and professors of the Duke Ellington Art School, one of the most incredible audiences we have seen," the company's director Carlos Alberto Cremata told.
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 2007, the company visited this country for the time in 2003.
