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Film

Dissident filmmakers dare to explore Cuba's issues

By STEVE PERSALL
Published August 25, 2006

Art Canvases reflect the pain of their past Demi, a Miami artist, left her real name behind when she left Cuba. Music Dreams of becoming an architect redesigned If it weren't for Fidel Castro, Freddy Montes might be designing nightclubs instead of performing in them. Talk about your odd twists of fate. Stage Freedom of expression takes on personal meaning Cuban artists' creativity has been profoundly influenced by Fidel Castro, whether stifled in their homeland or reflective of the hardships artists in exile endured because of the revolution.

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]