The nominees for the 2025 Lucas Awards have been announced. The stage is set: there will surely be controversy. In any case, the decision of a jury is simply the opinion of that jury: a positioning. However, that same selection can give an idea of the ambition of the Lucas project: to gather the best of the music video production in Cuba, regardless of genre.
In this sense, the exhibition honors the diversity of perspectives, styles, and ways of conceiving creations that, beyond their initial purpose of musical promotion, have become expressions of notable cultural significance.
Cuban music videos have long reached high standards of production, comparable to the best in international creation. The photography, editing, art direction, animation, and visual effects demonstrate a technical level that would be unthinkable without the convergence of talents from film, television, and visual arts.
But beyond that technical proficiency, Cuban music videos are distinguished by a tacit aspiration from the creators: a production as art, as a language with its own identity, capable of engaging with the viewer through emotion and intelligence.
It even seeks to transcend aesthetic values: serving as a platform for reflection. There are examples in this selection of works that address social, existential, historical, or symbolic themes beyond the mere illustration of a song. In this sense, the Lucas project has served as a showcase and catalyst for artistic concerns that find in musical audiovisuals a space for creative freedom.
Since its founding, Lucas has also been fertile ground for consolidating hierarchies. The awards, nominations, and reiterations of certain names have contributed to establishing a map of contemporary Cuban music videos.
One cannot ignore its promotional, industrial, advertising, and utilitarian nature; but it is precisely this tension between the commercial and the artistic that makes music videos such an interesting field.
And therein lies the importance of having a critical vocation always animating the selection of the awards.
It is not enough to have formal beauty or technical perfection. Evaluations must converge on aesthetic, conceptual, and ethical considerations. Art is not a territory for arbitrary segmentations or ephemeral complacencies.
A music video can be visually striking and yet lack a responsible discourse or a coherent perspective on the reality it represents. That awareness should be part of the spirit of the Lucas Awards as a space for cultural legitimization.
And of course, the usual controversy arises: why do the nominees for the most popular video not always coincide with the best of the year? The public often prioritizes musical taste and personal preferences over the values of the visual proposal.
This is not a minor conflict: it speaks to the distance, at times, between consumption and creation, between what excites immediately and what endures due to its artistic quality. Lucas, however, has managed to leverage that duality to foster dialogue between both realms.
Because beyond the awards, Lucas represents a great window. Its essential purpose is to promote creativity, stimulate experimentation, highlight talents, and offer the Cuban public an overview of what can be achieved when music, image, and artistic sensitivity converge.
Nominees for Best Video of the Year
• Eme Alfonso // Origen // Dir.: Daniel Santoyo
• Brenda Navarrete // Atúnwá // Dir.: Lena Hernández
• Issac Delgado // Eso que dijiste // Dir.: Lena Hernández
• Buena Fe ft Omar Acedo // Psiquiatra // Dir.: Po
• Wendy, Paola y Karina // Perdidas, empoderadas // Dir.: José Rojas
• Yomil // Metido // Dir.: Adrian Martínez and Julio Martínez
• Raúl Paz // Te sorprenderá // Dir.: Rocco Paz, Raphael Paz and Sailin Carbonell
(The works are available on YouTube and other platforms.)
