Dissident filmmakers dare to explore Cuba's issues

Dissident filmmakers dare to explore Cuba's issues
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
Published August 25, 2006

Fidel Castro understands the political influence of cinema, a lesson
learned through the writings of his socialist role model, Vladimir
Lenin. In fact, the first cultural law Castro enacted after the 1959
revolution created the Cuban Institute on Cinematographic Arts and
Industry as a propaganda tool.

"Fidel was following the footsteps of Vladimir Lenin in the Soviet Union
who said cinema is the most important of arts," said Alejandro Rios, 54,
a former Havana film critic now teaching Cuban film theories at Miami
Dade College. "They knew the moving image is the strongest thing to
influence (minds)."

That was evident after Castro's first presidential speech, captured in
news footage shown around the world. At one point, a white dove landed
on Castro's shoulder - serendipity spun by the nation's strong
Catholicism into a symbol of his right to rule.

"That became an iconography of him as a messiah," said Rios, who lived
in Cuba for 30 years until 1992.

Before Castro, Cuba's film industry was similar to that of other Latin
American nations, a privately financed entertainment source. Under
Castro's socialism, Cuban cinema was subsidized under strict guidelines
to depict only what made his government appear successful.

"Everything really got political," Rios said. "The idea was: Let's erase
whatever happened before. That was a big mistake. You can't erase your
legacy but that is what the (Cuban Institute) tried to do, following
orders from Fidel to be sure. Since the beginning, though, there were
dissidents, real intellectuals who didn't want to travel those steps."

Some filmmakers followed their muse to prison. Rios recalled Nicola
Guillen Landrian's 1968 documentary Coffea Arabiga, which showed Castro
stepping to a podium for a speech while the Beatles song The Fool on the
Hill played on the soundtrack. "He went to jail for that, then he went
crazy and got into drugs," Rios said. "It was a mess, what they did to him."

After the Berlin Wall fell, ending the Soviet Union's support of Cuban
communism, Castro had more pressing problems than disloyal filmmakers.
Subsidies were curtailed while European producers stepped in with
financing for bold movies such as Tomas Gutierrez Alea's 1994 gay
romance Strawberry and Chocolate (Fresa y chocolate) and Fernando
Perez's melancholy 2003 documentary Suite Habana.

An independent film culture emerged that continues to explore the
country's issues, although filmmakers are continually pressured to
promote the revolution's agenda. Nothing dramatic as a firing squad, but
socially fatal to dissident points of view.

"There isn't really a noose over your head but you won't get film stock,
you won't get cameras or any assistance," said Rafael Lima, 53, a
University of Miami film professor and documentarian whose latest works,
Presidio: The Trip Back and Plantabos, focus on Cuba's history of
political prisoners.

"When you get home you won't get the (food) ration card. You won't get
the subsidy from the government for your film. You won't have a position
at the university to teach.

"The Cuban revolution controls all aspects of your life. If you don't
toe the party line they really cut off the rest of your life at the
knees. There is an artistic freedom within the revolution, and only
within the revolution."

Rios thinks whenever Castro leaves office - for whatever reason - his
departure will enable more freedom of expression.

"(Young filmmakers) will be very happy," Rios said. "They will have to
deal with the new problems Cuba will have. I think they are really
prepared to deal with the big changes that will happen, if we don't see
(heir to the presidency) Raul Castro doing the same things as Fidel.

"Things will be more open, for sure. They'll be able to do more films,
although I don't know if European producers will be as interested.
They're mostly interested in (stories about) the prostitutes, the
musicians, stereotypes like that. I don't know if, after socialism ends
in Cuba, they'll want to deal with the new stereotypes that arise."

If and when Cuban socialism ends, Lima foresees a new wave of filmmakers
unafraid to tackle cultural, sexual and political subjects now off-limits.

"After the Castros are gone, you're going to see that Cuba has already
changed and hasn't been allowed to express it," he said. "You'll see a
resurgence of Afro-Cuban story lines. You'll see a heck of a lot more
sex and pornography. Sexuality is an integral part of the Cuban psyche
and that has been repressed in Cuban culture.

"You'll see more films like what Strawberry and Chocolate would've been
without the censors, a denouncement of the past 47 years of desperation,
of family separations. What's underneath the skin vibrating right now is
this amazing, profoundly deep well of resentment of what their lives
have become.

"The U.S. will not allow any more mass migration. Whoever is disaffected
or disenfranchised from the Cuban revolution is going to have to stay
home and deal with it, and much of that will be in films."

Steve Persall can be reached at (727) 893-8365 or persall@sptimes.com
[Last modified August 24, 2006, 08:28:57]

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