Documentary takes peek at Fidel Castro's private side
In a documentary, an international cast of luminaries talks about their
experiences with Fidel Castro.
By WILL WEISSERT
Associated Press
HAVANA -- The Rev. Jesse Jackson took him to church for the first time
in 27 years. Home-run legend Hank Aaron asked him for autographed
baseballs. Literary great Gabriel Garcia Marquez gave him a copy of
Dracula that kept him up all night reading and smuggled ingredients into
the country so he could make baklava.
An international cast of luminaries who traveled to Cuba and met with
Fidel Castro, as well as top members of his government and military,
talk about their experiences with the man who ruled the island for 49
years in U.S. documentarian Estela Bravo's Anecdotas Sobre Fidel (Fidel
Anecdotes).
``You really see Fidel the man, a little more of who he is,'' Bravo said
Thursday at a screening of her 46-minute movie, part of Havana's annual
film festival.
A longtime island resident married to a Cuban, Bravo made the
91-minute-long, sympathetic documentary Fidel: The Untold Story in 2001.
For that film, she interviewed Hollywood stars, American authors and
political leaders who had met Castro, as well as Cuban government and
military leaders and those who knew Castro as a child.
Bravo used leftover, unedited material from those interviews between
1996 and 2000 to produce her latest documentary. She said she had long
believed footage left on the cutting-room floor was worth releasing and
felt compelled to make the film now, since Havana's humid and salty air
was destroying her recorded material.
``He said, `I haven't been to church in 27 years,' '' Jackson says,
recalling the shocked faces of the Cuban priests when the pair appeared
in 1994.
A small group of ordinary Cubans lined up in front of a gracefully
decaying 1950s Havana movie house for the screening -- though most of
those in attendance were Ministry of Interior officials or other VIPs,
including Alberto Granados, an Argentine who accompanied revolutionary
Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara on his 1950s tour through South America that
inspired the film The Motorcycle Diaries.
Castro told 1960s radical-turned-academic Angela Davis that he got
nervous before making his interminable speeches, something she says has
helped her overcome stage fright.
``He's a big star,'' says late filmmaker and actor Sydney Pollack.
``Whether he's a villain or not, he's still a star.''
Castro's co-star in the documentary is food: Cubans and visitors alike
discuss his passion for cooking and his overbearing presence in the kitchen.
Documentary takes peek at Fidel Castro's private side - Cuba -
MiamiHerald.com (11 December 2009)
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1376548.html
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