Pauline Fraser review, Morning Star, London, 9/01

Links

Bette Wanderman

Bette Wanderman is a filmmaker who has produced "A Cuban Legend," on a subject dear to our collective heart: the muralist Salvador Gonzalez and Callejon de Hamel, his most extensive mural work. We have several photo galleries covering this little street in Havana.

Bette Wanderman confides this story. "A famous Babalao in Havana, who had lived in Nigeria for 8 years, told me that the Oni de Ife, who is the spiritual leader of the Yorba in Nigeria, told him that 4 people in the West would be influential in spreading the word of the ancient Yorba religion. The Oni instructed the Babalao that over a period of several years he would meet these people and that when he did he would know them and that he should give them each a special coin acknowledging their destiny." Bette went on to say "The Babalao told me this story as he placed one of the coins in my hand . I closed my fingers around the coin and tucked it into my pocket. The coin remained with me for one year before I grasped the significance of the fate I was handed by the Babalao. It was only then that I truly knew the story I wanted to tell and how to tell it. I found a great deal of inspiration in making the film comes from metaphysical forces."

The line up of 14 songs in the soundtrack feature the Cuban musical greats such as Congero Tata Guines, Pianist Frank Emilio, Rumberos Clave y Guaguanco and the female Rumberas Rumba Morena, and vocalist Maria Ochoa

In the late Spring of 2002 the film will be openning in theatres nationally wherever there is an independent screen and an audience of theatre goers who love Cuban art, music and cultural rituals.

For further information please go to www.Cubanlegends.com This web site will be totally constructed 12/15/01

"Dazzling colors, crackling Havana street life, the sexual beat of the Rumba and the centuries-old rituals of Yorban culture are the backdrop for this lively portrait of Salvador Gonzalez Escalona, a prince in his Cayo Hueso neighborhood in Havana. There, he has created a huge mural out of Callejon de Hamel, a once dangerous alley. In his studio, poised over a canvas, he says, 'What I paint flows from energy I receive from astral forces.' Salvador is such a forceful and charismatic presence, it is hard not to believe him."

The film played at The Mill Valley Film Festival, the Latin American Film Festival In London, Raindance in London, Aijijic in Mexico and will be shown at the Habana Film Festival in December, 2001.