Benicio del Toro has been one of the principal figures to have animated the Havana Film Festival. Before presenting, in a packed Yara movie theater, his most recent film Escobar: paraíso perdido, festival director Iván Giroud awarded the great Puerto Rican actor a Coral Prize of Honor.
Giroud confirmed that Del Toro merits this distinction for his artistic development, his charisma, his strength as an actor, for being one of the most acclaimed figures of his generation in Latin America, and for his wide dramatic range.
In the midst of an ovation which brought the audience filling the Yara to its feet, the Puerto Rican actor expressed his thanks for the Coral, saying,
“It is hard for me to express what it means to me that a Festival of such quality and history as this one should give me a prize. It is an honor for me to receive it in Cuba, a country for which I feel love, affection and respect.”
Benicio del Toro has a rich cinematographic career and has worked with important directors from all over the world, including John Glen (Christopher Columbus:
The Discovery), Peter Weir (Fearless), Bigas Luna (Huevos de oro), Abel Ferrara (The Funeral), Sean Penn (The Indian Runner, The Pledge), William Friedkin (The Hunted), Tony Scott (The Fan) and Robert Rodríguez (Sin City).
In 2001 he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and a Golden Globe for Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic, and was subsequently nominated in 2003 for 21 gramos, by Alejandro González Iñárritu.
In 2007 Del Toro incarnated the Argentine-Cuban combatant in the diptych Che: The Argentine and Che: Guerrilla, by Steven Soderbergh, and his performance won him the Cannes Festival prize for best actor.
The actor placed himself behind the cameras in the film Siete días en La Habana, a Spanish-French co-production of seven stories filmed in Havana by seven famous directors, in which he directed El Yuma.
The film was presented here at the 33rd Festival in 2011 by its seven directors. This year, Del Toro brought Escobar: paraíso perdido, from director Andrea di Stefano, and explained some of its themes in a press conference in the Tanganana salon of the Hotel Nacional, the festival headquarters.
He spoke of the investigative work he undertook on Pablo Escobar and noted that while the film is not an autobiography of the Colombian capo, it does narrate real events of a stage in his life.
Regarding the criteria he follows when deciding to work in a film, the actor said he considers its history, script, originality and of course, its director. Benicio del Toro said that he had recently finished three films: Inherent Vice, by Paul Thomas Anderson, A perfect day, by Fernando León, and Sicario, by Denis Villeneuve.
