In the year that celebrates Fidel Castro's 80th birthday, we are pleased to announce that the 2006 Cuban Film Festival, Si! Cubanas!, will launch at the Rialto Newmarket, Cinema, Auckland, on 27 September with a unique line-up of films. This year, the Cuban Film Festival's focus is on Women Filmmakers, showing the best work from the country's top female directors. In the year that celebrates Fidel Castro's 80th birthday, we are pleased to announce that the 2006 Cuban Film Festival, Si! Cubanas!, will launch at the Rialto Newmarket, Cinema, Auckland, on 27 September with a unique line-up of films. This year, the Cuban Film Festival's focus is on Women Filmmakers, showing the best work from the country's top female directors.Following the launch, the main Auckland venue for the Festival is the Cuban K'Rd cafe and bar Descarga Cubana. The Festival will also be held in Wellington and Hamilton, allowing audiences to see some of the best films - fiction and documentary - to come out of this remarkably rich cinematic country.

This year, the Cuban Film Festival's focus is on WOMEN FILMMAKERS, showing the best work from the country's top female directors. The Festival is particularly proud to have as its special guest the esteemed Afro-Cuban director GLORIA ROLANDO.

With a filmmaking career that spans thirty years, Rolando is a unique voice within Cuban filmmaking. Her focus on African-Cuban culture, through documentary and fiction film, offers a remarkable insight into a people and aspect of Cuban society that is frequently overlooked.

Music and musicians are also a constant theme of this important filmmaker and the festival is privileged to screen her most recent documentary, The Jazz in Us, about the influence of American jazz on black Havana youths in the 40s and 50s. Rolando will also present her current work in progress, about immigrants from the Cayman Islands.

As well as Rolando's work, the Festival features a tantalising programme of films - shorts, features and documentaries - that will captivate and entertain, including the first feature film directed by a Cuban woman, De Cierta Manera, and a short documentary about women in Cuban cinema, Cualqieur Mujer

Image Afro-Cuban director GLORIA ROLANDO.

Auckland 27th September-11th October 2006
Wellington 10th-14th October 2006
Hamilton 6th-8th October