44th Havana Film Festival: Clash of Speeches and Battle for Freedom of Expression

Two speeches faced each other like tips of an iceberg in the 44th edition of the Havana Film Festivalboth representatives of the dispute that has been taking place during the year between creators and officials, since the day the latter not only censored, but decided to kidnap and misinterpret the documentary on national television. Fito’s Havana, by Juan Pin Vilar. Then the association of creators called the Assembly of Filmmakers was activated again, and with it the fight with power in favor of freedom of expression regained vigor.

It is still not clear what the casualties will be in the field of creators. In the case of officials, some have already been replaced by the hidden power that maligns new strategies.

The first speech corresponded to a commissioner of official obscurantism who enters the game: Alexis Triana, the event organizer of the Ministry of Culture, recently appointed director of the ICAIC. In his praise of the Festival of New Latin American Cinema, he showed what an ignorant bureaucrat is, whose mission will be to carry out the orders dictated by the true power against the rebels. His dying words were repeated tired official enthusiasm and the feigned desire for conciliation with those creators who “we are for the solution and not for the scandal” (laterally, but comically, he also complained that officials were called as such because of history).

The antagonistic speech was given by Ernesto Daranaswho organized a second presentation of his documentary Landrian, with the pretext of remembering the twentieth anniversary of the death of the marginalized filmmaker, and the suggestion of a ruse to gain the floor at the largest film event in the country (the direct word, not the elusive one). His colleagues from the Assembly were waiting for him in the public. The director then spoke clearly about the current institutional censorship, about the legacy of Guillén Landrián in today’s artists, and about the Assembly of Filmmakers as an opponent of forced silences.. With this gesture, the organized field of creators gained reality at the Film Festival.

Last year, in the first presentation of the documentary, Daranas had said essentially the same thing as today, but more cautiously, and alone. The impetus of this edition is a sign that advances the cause of freedom of expression with organized artists. But it is in these moments of prosperity when greater precautions must be taken, because the enemy is not small or neophyte and, like the devil, knows how to hide. The first thing the creators must understand is to detect what is hidden beneath the iceberg whose visible summit this time has been Alexis Triana—but it is a mirage.

The real enemy of the Assembly of Filmmakers is not the officials or the bureaucracy, but the political police: the intelligence body that works tirelessly to frustrate every libertarian attempt in Cuba. The weapons of State Security are blackmail, fear, surveillance, lies. Your first objective: divide them. Contrary to what our instincts might indicate, they will be counteracted by the greatest possible transparency, the ability to appear complete and understandable to public opinion, and democracy. The enemy flourishes in darkness, he does not tolerate light.

2023-12-18 00:26:29
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