The president of the event’s Organizing Committee, Alexis Triana, told ACN that this year it has been scheduled for May 2-8 with the participation of 150 national and foreign delegates.

Triana added that the largest foreign delegations will be those from Mexico and Canada, countries with which there has been a vast cultural exchange for many years.

The festival, sponsored by the Hermanos Saiz Cultural Association (AHS), follows on a traditional religious celebration that began when Father Antonio Alegre placed a wooden cross at the top of the Cerro Bayado hill on May 3, 1790.

Since 1994 and following this tradition, every year musicians, actors, researchers, artists, writers and dancers come together to share their art during intense days and nights in which the diversity of their works is exhibited, and Cuban and foreign artists join the locals to enjoy a marathon-like program in various parts of the city.

The program of the Festival also includes the usual spaces dedicated to cinema, literature, plastic arts and music and the traditional event Memoria Nuestra (Our Memoirs), which focuses on studies on historic and social topics.