FILM AND ARTS FESTIVALS TO PRESENT SPECIAL SCREENING OF "GUANTANAMERA" TONIGHT

The Old Dominion University Film and Video Festival is joining with the Virginia Arts Festival to present a special screening of "Guantanamera" at 7 p.m. Nov. 13 in room 104 of the Batten Arts and Letters Building.

The film by Tomas Gutierrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabio will be presented in conjunction with the Virginia Arts Festival's presentation of the Nacional Ballet de Cuba. Admission to the screening is free and open to the public.

"Guantanamera" (1994) is a satirical look at life in Cuba with the mingling of stories of members in a funeral procession and a group of truck drivers headed to Havana, exploring love, sex and the fading hope of a revolution. This is the final film by Cuban maestro Alea, who also directed such post-revolution classics as "Memories of Underdevelopment" and "Strawberry and Chocolate."

The screening will serves as a sneak preview of Old Dominion University's fifth annual Film and Video Festival which will be held April 7-12, 2002. With a theme of "Visions of Peace and War," the festival will feature filmmakers, industry insiders and scholars who will explore some of these visions through presentation and analysis of more than 25 commercial blockbusters, independent and foreign films, television programs and documentaries.

For more information call festival director Kyle Nichols at 683-6336 or visit the festival Web site, http://web.odu.edu/filmfest.