MIAMI, United States. – The actress and activist Kiriam Gutiérrez was threatened this Tuesday by a State Security agent so that she would not attend the presentation of the short film Kill a man —censored during the 45th International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana— at the International Film and Television School of San Antonio de los Baños.
“I received a call from a State Security agent, in which, with a threatening tone, he told me that I should stay away from the film,” Gutiérrez declared to CubaNet. “I consider that this is political repression, that I have the right as an actress and as a filmmaker to defend my film, to defend the cinema I make and, of course, to go to the spaces where my work is projected,” she added.
Gutiérrez co-stars in Kill a mana 12-minute film by director Orlando Mora Cabrera that, according to the actress herself, is inspired by a real event and addresses the issue of the covert homosexuality of an agent of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR).
Last weekend it emerged that the short had been excluded from the Havana International Film Festival with the excuse of power outages. However, Mora Cabrera consider that it was an act of censorship motivated by the discomfort caused by its approach to “violence, domination or control that can be exercised over our bodies” and by its focus on LGBTIQ+ issues.
The actress also assured CubaNet that the objective of the team that made the short was that the work could “reach the public and be debated among people.” Likewise, he asked that the story told in the film not be censored.
The marginalization of Gutiérrez is not an isolated incident. At the beginning of July, the actress was banned from the “La Reina de la Copla” event, organized by the Venus Drag Queen project at the Cubanacán cabaret in Santa Clara. Gutiérrez, who had participated without problems in previous editions, was denied not only the possibility of performing on stage, but also of attending as an audience.
According to what the actress reported to CubaNet On that occasion, the organizers of the event justified her exclusion with vague arguments and even mentioned “anonymous” alleged people who accused her of being anti-communist and of planning acts against the Government from the stage. “They were defaming me… They have no evidence, they have nothing,” declared the actress, who stressed that these events are part of a broader political repression against her.
Attempts to participate in independent cultural circuits, added to her public activism, have made the actress a target of persecution. The authorities have unofficially prohibited him from working in night shows and have banned him from accessing recreational spaces.
Just this month, the actress and activist became the first Cuban trans woman to receive an Emmy award in the regional “Suncoast” category for her participation in the documentary series “Being Trans”produced by Martí News and referring to the experiences of trans people in Cuba and in exile.
“I’ve won an Emmy Award! Television Academy Award of the United States of America, for the first time a Latin American and Cuban trans woman wins it in this category, I couldn’t go but my name, my soul and my truth were heard on that stage. “Today I dedicate it to the entire LGBTIQ+ community in my country, to the trans community and to drag actors and actresses, those who are no longer here, those who are here and those who will come,” Gutiérrez wrote on his social networks.
The actress, 47, was also the first trans woman to venture into Cuban cinema and television. She is the protagonist of the video clip Lola, of the Moneda Dura group, where he was placed under the direction of Lester Hamlet. The video could not be broadcast on Cuban Television until 2008.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this note stated that Kiriam Gutiérrez was under house arrest. The information was corrected and expanded after receiving exclusive statements from the actress.
