Dozens of Cuban filmmakers have attacked this Thursday against the “cultural institutions” for the controversy surrounding the documentary Fito’s Havana, directed by Juan Pin Vilar and produced by Ricardo Figueredo. After a meeting that lasted hours, at the 23 and 12 cinema in El Vedado, Havana, which was attended by some 50 artists, they made public a statement in which they recount the “successive errors” of the “officials involved in these acts.”
The first of them, prohibiting the projection of the tape, together with Exist, by Fernando Fraguela and Yulier Rodríguez, and The one in charge, by Ricardo Figueredo, at the headquarters of the theater group El Ciervo Encantado, April 29.
The filmmakers reproach “not offering public and satisfactory information about this decision” and, furthermore, which happened last Saturday, “presenting an unfinished copy of the documentary on a Cuban television program, ignoring the refusal of its director and producer , and with the explicit purpose of discrediting them”.
In that program, they continue, two vice presidents of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba participated, “whose first function should be the defense of the interests of Cuban creators.” Instead, the artists denounced, they published on the networks “statements where they manipulate what happened” and “offer false interpretations of the Copyright Law.”
“The most serious thing is that similar procedures have become systematic, especially in relation to the cinema. The actions of these cultural authorities have violated time and again ethical principles that should be the support of any respectful and constructive dialogue,” the judges say. filmmakers.
Among the signatories of the letter are, among others, Fernando Pérez, Gustavo Arcos, Rebeca Chávez, Luis Alberto García, Arturo Arango and Jorge Perogurría
Among the signatories of the letter are, among others, Fernando Pérez, Gustavo Arcos, Rebeca Chávez, Luis Alberto García, Arturo Arango and Jorge Perogurría.
The director Carlos Díaz Lechuga, resident in Spain, was not optimistic about the meeting on June 15. “Everything that has to do with Cuba and Cuban cinema is a deja vu”, assured on your Facebook account. “The creators have sat in the same chair since the 1960s and the cadres and disguised policemen let them speak and tell them that everything will be resolved. Everyone goes home with hopes or doubts and that’s it.”
The filmmaker stated that the creators were “giving dreams to people who kill. Dialogue against thugs. Nothing is going to change. Down with the dictatorship!”
The cancellation of the three films mentioned in the letter provoked a wave of questions towards the authorities and solidarity with the affected filmmakers. In the case of Fito’s Havana The censorship surprised many since the documentary was one of the winning projects of the Fund for the Promotion of Cuban Cinema in 2021, a state initiative. Vilar sought official explanations for the cancellation of the event. In a meeting with officials from the Ministry of Culture, he only received evasions, so he decided to send a letter to Miguel Díaz-Canel.
When on June 10, on Educational Channel 2, Cuban Television broadcast Fito’s Havana, which narrates the visits of Fito Páez to Havana and his opinions on the situation in Cuba, in his Critical Spectator space, Vilar denounced that he never gave his consent for the documentary to be shown on television and that the one broadcast on the program was “a bad copy and stolen (…) It is not the definitive cut”.
Based on this claim, numerous filmmakers have criticized the official performance, such as the director Fernando Pérez and the critic Gustavo Arcos.
This Thursday’s meeting is not the first of its kind in which audiovisual creators demand greater respect for their work and propose a roadmap to revive the sector.
In 2013 the G-20 emerged, a group of filmmakers demanding a film law, greater recognition for the audiovisual creator and the legalization of independent production companies, among other benefits. But after a few years the group was losing steam due to exhaustion, tiredness or responsibility with other commitments. Several of its members went into exile.
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