CAMAGÜEY.- He is not a baseball fan, but he hit a double play with the bases loaded and in front of an overflowing stadium. In the previous year's edition of the Audiovisual Show El Almacén de la Image, Cuban and foreign participation, conquered with his best friend, Henry de Armas, the award called pitching, in the animation category, and in the most recent appointment of the event, he individually obtained the award in this type of recognition, consisting of receiving financing for filming.

Keiter Castillo Santana greatly enjoys his double play, completed in the aforementioned modality, in 2022, in a match in which 77 works fought in a contest sponsored by the Camagüey's branch of the Hermanos Saíz Association (AHS), and which in its 32 meetings has been increasing its importance as one of the main audiovisual contests in Cuba.

In another appearance in the batting cage in this year's fair, he recorded one more score, as the central jury awarded Secuela the award for short films of up to three minutes.

The work alludes to wars and the traces left on those who have participated in those conflicts. The film also won in 2021, three awards at the Imago contest, organized by the University of the Arts (ISA).

With the 2022 awards at El Almacén de la Imagen, he became one of the most successful contestants in the showdown.

A short film scheduled to last just over four minutes, “Cachorro”, awarded in the most recent animation pitching, alludes to the Saratoga hotel fire and centers the story on a dog that, out for a walk with his owner, upon noticing the catastrophe, escapes to the place to rescue victims.

The tape contains a deep defense of solidarity, and a tribute to those who died as a result of the incident, as well as to the people who participated in the confrontation with the fire, including firefighters and rescuers.

Keiter will be the director and screenwriter of the film, which will compete in 2023 in the upcoming edition of El Almacén de la Imagen.

He is a member of the AHS in the province and a second-year student of Audiovisual Communication Media Management, at the ISA branch in Camagüey.

Keiter's artistic career has a dramatic and at the same time happy component: he felt an irreversible stage fright for his theater specialty studied at the Nicolás Guillén Batista School of Art Instructors, in the provincial capital.

In that educational center, he wrote stories that he visualized mentally, and that was the first symptom of his inclination for the audiovisual and the antidote to the fear of acting.

Later he took on other challenges and worked as a pizza maker, welder, and lock assembler.

His initial work in the moving image was as assistant director for the casting of the feature film Pablo, which materialized in the province.

Calm young, but also capable of being sanguine, persevering, and optimistic, he accumulates more than 30 achievements, distributed in responsibilities, in addition to those mentioned, in branches such as director of photography, art assistant, cameraman, post-production director, and general producer.

That future includes a feature film, fiction short films, documentaries, animated films, spots, and capsules, and has shown him that his greatest stimulus is assuming the direction.

His wife, Roxana Bueno, a biology teacher, and to whom he is united by 10 years of love, is the first person to whom he confesses his initiatives. And are there relationships between biological and audiovisual contexts? Apparently not, but yes, because both are crucibles of pulsating life.

Along with the moving image, he is also fascinated by highly productive entertainment, including fishing for freshwater species, repairing his motorboat, crafting light sources with rechargeable batteries, and from time to time helping out in the kitchen.

He is a home run hitter, although he is not attracted to baseball.

That is Keiter Castillo Santana, a young man aware that hope and luck must also be summoned by passionate and unrelenting work, and the overflowing passions of the heart, although the heart often has reasons that reason does not know.

Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez