They create an archive of Cuban cinema in exile to get it out of the “darkness”

Miami, Oct. 19 (EFE) .- A prolific cinematography, not only marginalized in its country, but often ignored abroad due to ideological prejudices is what the founders of the new Cuban Cinema of the Diaspora are determined to pull out of the “Darkness”, according to EFE.

With the help of Florida International University (FIU), director Eliecer Jiménez Almeida, who left Cuba in 2014, and university professor Santiago Juan-Navarro, a Spaniard who has lived in Miami since 1995, have joined forces for this initiative. will be presented on 20 October.

So far, 108 Cuban directors in exile, both living and deceased, have been included in the archive, residing mainly in the United States, but also in Spain, Mexico and other countries.

A GREAT TASK FORWARD

Both agree in separate interviews with EFE that the final list will be much longer.

In part, because they know that there are independent directors among the many Cubans who leave the island by land and by sea, because the situation there “is very complicated”, like Jiménez Almeida, author of documentaries such as “Persona”, “Usufruct” , He says. , “The Face of the Waters” and “Veritas”.

They also expect many more names and biographies because they are constantly receiving information from Cubans who have made or are making films outside their country that they did not know until then.

“These are people who work a little in the dark,” says Juan-Navarro.

Jiménez Almeida adds that the idea is to subsequently include in the archive Cuban actors, technicians and producers in exile. “We have a lot of work ahead of us,” he points out.

It will enter the Archive of the Cuban Cinema of the Diaspora (CDfA, in English).

THE ZERO KILOMETER OF THE CINEMA OF THE SLOW

It is not known how many short films, feature films and documentaries the Cuban diaspora has produced so far, but the 39-year-old Cuban director can say which of these productions is considered the precursor, the “zero kilometer”, in his words.

This is “PM” (1961), a short documentary by Orlando Jiménez Leal, an 81-year-old director who will be awarded by the Cuban Diaspora Film Archive during the presentation of the project to the Cuban community in Miami.

“This short is very special, it was the last film in which you see people having fun in Cuba,” says Jiménez Almeida, who participated in the restoration of another Jiménez Leal film, “Improper Conduct”, which deals with the repression of homosexuals in revolutionary Cuba and will be screened in the same event.

Juan-Navarro adds that “PM” was personally censored by Fidel Castro and took his director into exile, who, in the style of “free cinema”, portrayed in that short film people looking for nightlife in the bars of the port of ‘Havana.

It shows a face of Cuban society that was not what the triumphant Revolution of January 1959 was intended to show, adds Eliecer Jiménez Almeida, a PhD student in Spanish at FIU.

The filmmaker cites the director Carlos Quintela, who now lives in Madrid and who in 2017 shot a film in Japan and in Japanese, “Lobos del este”, among the archival “rarities”, with which he gave continuity to a film shot on the island of the Japanese Kazuo Kuroki, “The bride of Cuba” (1969).

THE PREJUDICES OF THE INTELLECTUAL LEFT

Both Jiménez Almeida and Juan-Navarro point out that Cuban cinema in exile has suffered from the prejudice of left-wing intellectuals in countries such as Spain, France and the United Kingdom, but also in the United States.

The Spanish professor warns of the great weight of “icaiccentrism”, since the well-established idea is known that there is no Cuban cinema of artistic interest before the revolution and that it all started with the ICAIC (Cuban Institute of Art and Film Industry) , created by Fidel Castro in 1959.

Eliecer Jiménez claims that he personally suffered these prejudices and the closing of doors and assures that everything he achieved in his life as a director cost him more to be a Cuban outside Cuba.

According to Juan-Navarro, the Archive is centered on the academic world but without neglecting the community and it is not exclusive, even if “we cannot do it outside of politics” due to the circumstances in Cuba, where the political system is the same. since 1959 and there are still people who choose to go into exile.

Ana Mengotti