Announced yesterday by both Cuban and US governments that on 18 April a delegation from the United States President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities will visit Cuba, including representatives of U.S. institutions, and a group of artists and intellectuals.
The Committee is a White House advisory body whose main areas of focus are arts and humanities education, cultural exchange and cultural industries.
The visit is welcomed by Cuba's Ministry of Culture in the spirit of improving relations.

"Stop eating sh*t and go and make films about Batista!" Cuban filmmaker Espinosa was told in 1956 before the revolution in response to his neo-realist El Megano film , according to this brilliant homage to him here after he died this week. Inventor of the Imperfect Cinema theory and former head of Cuba's National Film Institute ICAIC.

Renowned Cuban dancer, Carlos Acosta, is presenting his newly set up company Acosta Danza at Havana's Grand Theater from May 8 through 13 with a contemporary program.

New talents, new perspectives…

In March 2016 Cuban artist Kcho started live streaming to YouTube from his studio and groundbreaking community arts centre the Romerillo Organic Museum in Havana. Read more about it here

If a virtual information cloud can be useful to Cuba, (the Cuban artist) Kcho looks for it and finds it. At least he tries. For that reason he has created a classroom for live technological transfer at the epicentre of his latest work – the Romerillo Organic Museum (in Playa, Havana).

In February 2016, a delegation of approximately 40 American publishing industry representatives met with their publishing counterparts in Havana, Cuba. The two days of meetings, held with the support of the Cuban government, represented a historic milestone. Their purpose was to build bridges of understanding and explore opportunities for greater cultural and economic collaboration.

The first edition of the Musicabana Festival, to be held next May, will bring to the Cuban capital city a handful of well-known artists throughout the world, like Jamaican Sean Paul, Brazilian Carlinhos Brown and the Cubans IBEYI. As a prelude to the event, US DJ and producer Diplo, who started from the underground and became a star of the electronic royalty, performed at the Tribuna Antimperialista with his project Major Lazer, which has toured the world with his powerful hybrid sound-famous thanks to the hit Lean On.

The University of Notre Dame conferred Dr. Eusebio Leal Spengler the 2016 Henry Hope Reed Award for his capacity "to transform the Office of the Historian from a conventional cultural agency to a financially autonomous model of management that not only generates the funds needed to undertake complex restoration projects but also provides support for the local community".

The 15th International Book Fair Cuba 2016, concludes today in Havana and begins a tour of the country, which runs until April 24th.

Photographer Iván Nápoles will be given the National Cinema Award 2016 on March 24, the anniversary of the foundation of ICAIC, announced the President of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Arts and Industry (ICAIC), Roberto Smith.

While waiting for the release this year of the film Winds of lent, of the Spanish director Félix Viscarret, prolific Cuban writer Leonardo Padura and his most famous character: Mario Conde, are today closer to cinema. Although the author of the famous tetralogy "The Four Seasons" is pleased with the tape, he confessed that writing for this genre is much more complicated.

The Rolling Stones will perform a groundbreaking concert in Havana, Cuba on Friday March 25, 2016. The free concert will take place at the Ciudad Deportiva de la Habana and will be the first open air concert in the country by a British Rock Band. Always exploring new horizons and true pioneers of rock, the Stones, who have toured every corner of the globe, will bring their high octane performance and incredible music catalogue to the Caribbean for the first time ever.

Love in Havana is the title of the first Chinese-Cuba cinema coproduction scheduled for shooting in Havana in early March, between a Chinese audiovisual producer and Cuban RTV Comercial film company.
RTV Comercial general director and Zhen Dawei, film director, signed the accords on Tuesday to implement the co-production project.
Ortega told ACN that the film is the first in a joint project to produce audiovisuals that reflect the cultures of China and Cuba. But the most important thing is that this project will bring Chinese and Cuban talents together to make a cinema that unites us, he noted.
The full-length film tells the story of Chinese students that fall in love here while taking their education courses and expose the difficulties of a relationship between people of different cultures.
Zheng Dawei thanked RTV Comercial and the Moncada music band, in charge of the soundtrack, for achieving a goal that was being pursued for the past two years.

This film will be the first in a project that will include another four joint movies in Cuba.

"We wanted our traditional music to live on and to enchant the world and this is what our tours achieved. It has been an incredible part of my career and life." Omara Portuondo