More than a hundred Cuban filmmakers expressed their disagreement with the authorities about the decisions made with a documentary about the Argentine singer Fito Páez and his relationship with the Island. The creators, grouped in the Assembly of Cuban Filmmakers – which includes the prestigious director Fernando Pérez and the actor Jorge Perugorría – held a meeting this Friday with leaders of the Ministry of Culture and the Communist Party to address the controversy unleashed in mid-June.
The controversy gained momentum when a state television program aired the documentary. Fito’s Havana, directed by Juan Pin Vilar, without his permission. Given this fact, an initial group of 58 creators criticized the cultural authorities for violating “time and again ethical principles.” The list has increased to 600 signatories of the manifesto.
“This meeting was not as broad as the one that took place on November 27, 2020, where there were exponents of all artistic manifestations. It was something more trade union, of filmmakers,” he details to 14ymedio the director Manuel Alejandro Rodríguez Yong, one of the participants in the discussion. “I think that even so, the possibility of working together with many of the problems that affect us was raised”
“This meeting was not as broad as the one that took place on November 27, 2020, where there were exponents of all artistic manifestations”
The meeting was moderated by Ramón Samada, president of the official Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (Icaic), and present on behalf of the Government were Vice Prime Minister Inés María Chapman; the head of the Ideological Department of the Party, Rogelio Polanco; the Minister of Culture, Alpidio Alonso; the president of the Union of Writers and Artists (Uneac), Luis Morlote, and the leader of the Hermanos Saíz Association, Yasel Toledo.
They discussed, according to Rodríguez, problems of a logistical nature that depend on the administration of the State, but also what has to do with the ideological and the political. “Everything will also depend on us (the filmmakers) being able to organize ourselves,” he says.
“The meeting was convened, at first, for the ninth floor of the ICAIC, but then the Assembly of Filmmakers asked that it be held in a more open place. That is why the Chaplin was chosen and to make it open.”
According to Rodríguez, several creators did not attend because they did not find out and others because “they do not trust this type of meeting.” Regarding the exiled filmmakers, such as Carlos Lechuga or Pavel Giroud, it was demanded to “find a way for them to have a presence through digital channels,” says the director.
“Among the names mentioned was that of Lettuce. What happened to the film Vincent B., more than a censorship of the work, it was a punishment for the director. There was also talk of other filmmakers who are making films outside of Cuba, but who are part of Cuban cinema. They have to be part of the discussions,” he says.
According to the EFE agency, Chapman stated during the conversation that “there is a willingness to dialogue and teamwork”
According to the EFE agency, Chapman stated during the conversation that “there is a willingness to dialogue and teamwork to achieve concrete results in the face of all the demands expressed there.”
For her part, one note of the Ministry of Culture pointed out that “the approaches of the artists deserved the greatest attention of the leaders of the institutions”. “The artists listened carefully to the arguments of the representatives of the institutions and expressed their opinions in total freedom,” according to the text.
It is not the first time that there has been a confrontation between the artistic sector and the Cuban government in recent years. On November 27, 2020, hundreds of people staged a sit-in in front of the Ministry of Culture to protest the arrest of members of the San Isidro Movement, including the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, who remains in prison.
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