Cultural Festival of French-speaking Nations in Cuba

HAVANA, Cuba, March 11 (acn) With the "Images of the Louvre, six centuries of European painting" exhibition in Havana's Real Fuerza Castle, a week of activities dedicated to the French-speaking nations will be inaugurated in this capital.

The event, slated for March 14th through the 21th, includes a wide-ranging program of concerts, book launches, film screenings and lectures, which will represent a new opportunity for Cuba to share the culture and values of French-speaking countries.

Organized by the French Alliance in Havana, the festival has the cooperation of several francophone embassies and entities, and the Office of Havana City Historian, the Cuban Film Institute, the Fine Arts Museum, the Casa de las Américas cultural institution, the Victor Hugo Centre and the Wallonie Showcase.

During a news conference, the director general of the French Alliance in Cuba, Andrés D´Ubeda, highlighted the importance of the French language to unite countries by way of cultural diversity.

He added that, during the festival, participants will have the opportunity to enjoy, both in the capital and in eastern Santiago de Cuba province, the work of musicians, poets and other artists from Switzerland, Belgium and France -members of the International Organization of French-speaking Nations- who will share the stage with Cuban artists.

He stressed that the exhibition "Images of the Louvre, six centuries of European painting" comes from that famous museum in Paris, and that it's made up of 100 life-size digital reproductions of masterpieces from the 13th to the 19th centuries, photographed in high-definition.

The cultural attaché of the French embassy to Havana, Alain Zayán, thanked all participating institutions for the chance to hold this event in the Cuban capital, as a new opportunity to exchange ways of producing art from the perspective of French speaking nations, and for turning it into a space of peace and development.

Every year, French speakers from the five continents celebrate the International Day of the French Language on March 20. The date is an excellent occasion to celebrate French as a bond uniting 200 million people speaking this language in the world.

(Celebrará Cuba semana de la francofonía)