Enrique Pineda Barnet I Still Expect Surprises

"You never know what awaits when you go out to play. You never know what can happen in a second."…

With that first stanza of a song by new Cuban singer William Vivanco, Enrique Pineda Barnet targets the theme of family separation in his most recent film La anunciación, starring Verónica Lynn (2003 National Theatre Award), Broselianda Hernández, Héctor Eduardo, Ismael Diego and child Roberto Díaz.

Film and video scriptwriter, university professor, journalist, critic, publicist and lecturer, Pineda Barnet has actively participated in almost every artistic discipline from childhood. In 1953 he won the National Hernández Catá Literature Award and the prize at the Cuban Song Festival.

Motives aside, the maker of the most viewed movie in the history of Cuban cinema (La bella del Alambra) is an extrovert and possessor of an enviable sense of humour, memorable for its bite and eloquence.

What lessons and marks has the cinema left on you? - Thousands. One, very marked, was the documentary made by my compatriot José Massip, called "El Maestro del Cilantro," about when I taught in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. I taught people from four years old to adults.

By a trick of fate, some of those children who were my students now live in this city. For example, there's a teacher whose son is a lawyer and who now works with me. That's life's gift. Yesterday's children are now my benefactors. It is an immeasurable treasure...