“The methods have become systematic” and “Cuban cinema will be free or it will not be!”
Amidst a number of directors in Cuba demanding the right to work in an atmosphere of freedom, the censorship imposed on a documentary film about the relationship between a famous musical star and the capital, Cuba, sparked great anger in the cinematic community.
And the French press agency quoted Cuban actor Luis Alberto García as saying during receiving an award at the “Jibara International Film Festival” in eastern Cuba: “Cuban cinema will be free or it will not be!”, amid standing applause from the audience.
The actor dedicated his award to the “Cuban Directors Association”, which includes about 400 professionals in this art. Vigorously protesting recently against the imposition of censorship on “Havana, Vito City”, a documentary film that tells of the relationship that Argentine rock singer Vito Paez, famous throughout Latin America, woven with the Cuban capital.
Director Juan Ben Villar, 60, told the agency, “It is the drop that made the cup overflow, after a number of problems and historical censorship operations at the heart of the culture of the Cuban revolution.”
Argentine singer and songwriter Vito Paez during a press conference in Havana (AFP)
The issue began in April, with the Ministry of Culture banning the broadcast of three documentaries, including Juan Penn Villar’s, in a small independent cultural center in Havana. Faced with the director’s protests, Cuban television eventually broadcast the film, albeit in an incomplete version and without the permission of either the director, the producer, or the singer himself.
The director explained that the authorities’ decision relates to a section of the film in which Vito Paez questions the official version of the murder of revolutionary Camilo Cienfuegos, who went missing in 1959, and the death sentence issued in 2003 against three young men who hijacked a ship to immigrate to the United States.
After the film was broadcast fragmentarily on television, about 600 artists signed a declaration denouncing this type of “method that has become systematic” in Cuban cinema. Among the signatories was singer Silvio Rodriguez, director Jorge Perugoria, and the main actor in the movie “Strawberries and Chocolate” (1993), which constituted an important stage in Cuban cinema.
Cuban director Juan Penn Villar (AFP)
For his part, director Miguel Coyola, 46, explained that “showing (the film) on television encourages piracy and eliminates the life he could have at international festivals,” noting that he films his films in secret to avoid police harassment.
For two years, he showed at his home his movie “The Blue Heart” (2021), which participated in some festivals abroad, while Cuban theaters ignored it. He comments: “It is as if we filled the Chaplin Hall twice,” the largest cinema hall in Havana.
An unprecedented meeting took place at the Charles Chaplin Cinema in late June between members of the Directors’ Association and government officials, including a representative of the ideology section of the Cuban Communist Party. Tension dominated the discussions when Miguel Coyola filmed some of the interventions, despite the warnings of Ramon Samada, head of the Cuban Institute of Art and Film Industry.
Coyola is heard shouting in a video clip posted on YouTube: “We are independent directors, but we are ready to be arrested because our job is to film!”
Cuban actor Jorge Perugoria, star of the movie “Strawberries and Chocolate” (AFP)
Days later, the director of the institute was replaced, and the authorities formed a working group to respond to the concerns of film professionals.
The Directors’ Association, which learned of the establishment of this working group, responded via television, announcing that it had not received a response to “specific and systematic issues related to censorship and exclusion,” and demanded a new meeting.
Vito Paez himself joined the debate, and said in an interview with the independent media platform “El Toki”: “I am a friend of the Cuban people, and I see that the ministry’s employees do not represent this people.”
In turn, Maria Isabel Alonso, a specialist in Cuban literature and culture at St. Joseph University in New York, believes that the current debate “is indicative of a larger problem, a methodological problem, which is the right to freedom of artistic expression for creators, which contradicts a moral and ideological vision promoted by the authorities.”
In November 2020, about 300 artists demonstrated to demand more freedom of expression, in the wake of which a dialogue took place that did not lead to a result.
