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Jan. 10, 2013 - Steve Pieczenik

08:32

A NEW ERA'S FILMMAKERS: Finding Ways in Cuba

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	Good evening, my dear friends.
	This is Dr.
	Buchanek on Steve Buchanek Talks.
	And this one, tonight's podcast and TV show, is a little bit more personal than my other ones.
	It's based, again, on a New York Times article, A New Era of Filmmakers Find Ways in Cuba.
	And it talks about how the digital experiences come into Cuba and how young directors and producers are arising in this totalitarian state.
	Now many of you may or may not know that I happened to have been born in Cuba by circumstances that were beyond my control and certainly my parents' control.
	They left Europe.
	My father was in the French army and my mother escaped the Holocaust by exiting through Spain under Franco and then into Portugal under Salazar.
	And they were fortunate to come into Cuba Not because of Batista's great affections for refugees or Jews, but quite frankly thanks to the Jewish-Italian mob, including Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Longhi's Wellman, Frank Costello, and many others who controlled the National and controlled Havana in the 1940s.
	My point isn't to reify or deify the mob.
	My point is simply to state something that happened over 20 years ago.
	And that was that for the first time in my life, I was allowed to return to the country I was born in.
	For many reasons, having worked for five presidents and having fought against Castro's soldiers in Panama and elsewhere, I clearly was not a friend of the state, even though I was Cuban-born and I have a Cuban passport, although my allegiance is to the United States.
	I fought hard and actively against Castro and his people in Panama and elsewhere, and both Raul and Fidel knew this, but for reasons that I won't go far into...
	I returned to Cuba only once, in the year 2000, under the auspices of, quite frankly, a liberal organization out of New York.
	In that return, I was fortunate enough to encounter a man by the name of Cuyula, C-O-Y-U-L-A. He was a very distinguished official of the Castro government who fought in the revolution And wanted me to meet his young son at that time in his early 20s by the name of Miguel Cuyula.
	He was a young software engineer, but really a director, writer, producer who created a lot of visual images that were quite fascinating.
	Mr.
	Cuyula knew that I had been a producer on television and had some experience in the movie business.
	I went to his house, I met Miguel Cuyula, and I was impressed by what he had done and how he had done it in a very repressive society, using a digital camera with almost no money.
	Let's go back.
	And then we run forward another two years, and he comes and visits the United States.
	And then I fund his first film, which is called Red Cockroaches.
	He made it.
	Miguel made it over a year and a half, two-year period while he was at the Stella Adler School studying, acting, and directing.
	And I funded him with a full sum of about $2,000 in a small digital camera.
	And he made a film called Red Cockroaches, which was, quite frankly, impressive technically, but from the point of view of content, I'm still not sure what it was.
	But I was the executive producer.
	Then, let's go forward another few more years, and I was fortunate enough, again, to come into contact with Miguel.
	He came over, and I spent a lot of time and underwrote a major film of his called Memories of Overdevelopment.
	Which was a re-examination of an equally famous film done in Cuba called Memories of Underdevelopment and also it was a sequel to a later film of Strawberry and Chocolates and many other films.
	But Miguel was interested in the funding He didn't have it.
	I provided all of the funding at the time for using a digital camera that he used, and under the direction of a very talented director by the name of David Leitner, who was really the director-producer and the man who oversaw the line-producing of the entire project.
	Over two to three years, Miguel produced an award-winning film called Memories of Overdevelopment, which engaged all kinds of images We're anti-Castro, Poe Castro, anti-Che, anti-capitalism.
	In other words, it had a political but apolitical point of view and had a storyline that was, in my opinion, out of control, but technically it was quite brilliant.
	It received an award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010, which I attended, and I was very proud for Miguel.
	Why do I bring this up now?
	From a personal point of view, Miguel has been written up, and I'm very proud of him, in today's New York Times on January 5th, highlighting the fact that he's one of the leaders of the digital filmmaking revolution in Cuba, which has really encompassed hundreds and hundreds of young men and women into the burgeoning film industry, which the brothers Fidel and Raul Castro can not Stop.
	It's not really about my story or even Miguel's story.
	It's really about the story of individuals who are willing to risk their own safety and security and even some money to underwrite dissident activities overseas in governments which are suppressive.
	In my case, I've done it for 20, 30 years for painters who were suppressed in the Soviet Union, and I funded their exits and exegesis from the Soviet Union to the United States, and they became quite prominent.
	My interest was not in their prominence, but really in the work.
	That they had done in the Soviet Union during the time of suppression and tyranny.
	As it was my interest to support women in Cuba who've been incarcerated.
	And I've brought up their artwork from all over the world.
	Rosa Morales and others who become quite prominent.
	Again, this is not a statement about me.
	It's a statement about those of us who are willing to go out of our way for a few dollars, not really very much money, and willing to go to countries through intermediaries or directly to underwrite artists who've been under suppression, be they writers, painters, photographers, movie makers, producers, or dancers.
	And this is the great dream of what I call the American entrepreneur missionary spirit.
	It's not to undertake it under the name of anything but a sense of obligation to someone who's been under suppression in a foreign country and to allow them to burgeon in their own talents of creativity.
	And to foster that creativity through any means possible and find ways to take their end product, be it a photograph, which I recently acquired from a suppressed Cuban woman photographer, or be it a painting from the Soviet Union or elsewhere in the world.
	And I wish you, my fellow listeners, the opportunity to go out of your way to support some dissident activity around the world and make somebody happy in allowing them to be creative in a time of tyranny and suppression.

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