Two Cuban animated short films will compete in the official selection of the New York Americas Film Festival (Taffny, for its acronym in English), as announced this Friday by the Cuban Institute of Art and Cinematographic Industry (ICAIC).
The selected works are Raptus and La Niña y el Mar, both proposed by the institution itself, cited the official agency Prensa Latina.
The president of ICAIC, Alexis Triana, publicly congratulated the creative teams of the two pieces through his social media.
Raptus, directed by Ivette Ávila, is a stop motion animated documentary made with clay that reconstructs the real testimony of a woman who is a victim of gender-based violence within a romantic relationship.
The piece is part of the macroproject Linterna Violeta, dedicated to addressing issues related to gender-based violence and social prevention.
The short has an impressive track record: it won the Coral Award for Animation at the 46th edition of the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana, held in December 2024, and was also recognized with the cultural criticism award from the Culture Circle of the Union of Journalists of Cuba.
The second selected work, The Girl and the Sea, is the debut film of young filmmaker Ray Ortega. It is a three-minute black and white short film that revolves around a conversation between a father and his daughter about an unusual pet, with the sea as an additional prominent presence.
This piece won the Grand Prize Caracol 2025 in Animation, an award given by the Association of Film, Radio, and Television of UNEAC, and also received a special mention at the International Poor Film Festival of Gibara.
Both short films share some of the technical team: Kadier Fuentes was responsible for the script and production in both projects, while Aramis Acosta served as the executive producer in both cases.
El Taffny, organized by the City College of New York (CUNY), is a festival dedicated to the cultural diversity of the Americas that brings together stories, languages, and voices from North America and Latin America in categories of fiction, documentary, animation, and experimental film.
Its 2026 edition will take place from September 30 to October 9 in New York City.
The Cuban presence in this event comes at a time when the ICAIC is trying to maintain its international projection despite the deep crisis the Island is facing.
In August of last year, the institution received solar panels donated by Germany to protect its facilities from the blackouts affecting the country.
Cuban animation has a long tradition under the ICAIC, which has produced iconic works since the 1960s. Last July, the first Cuban animated feature film was restored in Colombia, in an effort to preserve that cinematic heritage.
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