Making Movies in a Cuba with Hardened Censorship
“The only way to function is to be outside the institutions”
Miguel Coyula and Lynn Cruz talk about their ‘Chronicles of the Absurd’, a film that won awards abroad and was censored in Cuba
By Jorge Fernandez Era (14ymedio)
HAVANA TIMES – In a film scene marked by censorship, it has become common for filmmakers to turn to alternative venues to exhibit their films. I went to one of them, the home of director Miguel Coyula and actress Lynn Cruz, to see the documentary Crónicas del absurdo [Chronicles of the Absurd], winner of the Best Film award in the Envision competition, at one of the most important festivals in the world: the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival. We talked about the reality that the film draws on that December afternoon.
The Havana Film Festival ended a few days ago. It seems that the event is still “alive.”
Miguel Coyula: I always send my films to Cuban festivals so that there is a record of them being rejected. There are filmmakers who, out of principle, do not do so, but when you are sure of what you are saying, your work should ideally be shown everywhere. The premises of my last four feature films would never have been approved by the ICAIC (Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry). So, the only way to function is to be outside of the institutions.
When there is such a long list of taboo subjects – you cannot make a film where you directly touch on the figure of Fidel, or a corrupt doctor or primary school teacher, or a policeman or soldier – there are filmmakers who believe they are making independent films while making pacts with the ICAIC, where the scripts have to be approved according to Decree 373, which dictates that the content has to be within the “climate of creative freedom permitted by the Cuban Revolution.” The institution itself gives you your “independent filmmaker” card.
Independent cinema has to be uncomfortable. It is not independent because you finance it out of your own pocket, but because of its content and form.
Lynn Cruz: I had heard that the event was very politicized. The point is not to close doors, not to eliminate spaces, but to use those spaces as a forum. And, as a filmmaker, having a film at the Festival also means having a platform, being able to express your political ideas.
The Festival lives on because it happened, it will continue to happen. What is worrying is the cinema that is made, which wants to fit into those spaces because of the few opportunities filmmakers have to exhibit their works.
Along with the deterioration of the political, economic and social situation of Cubans, the exclusion of different voices is returning. What is the role of the intellectual community, of yourselves, in times like this?
Lynn Cruz: There is a certain exhaustion. The “sit-in” of intellectuals in front of the Ministry of Culture on November 27, 2020, happened. Then there were the massive protests in July 2021. It is as if everything is condensed in time and happens more quickly. Before, it was more or less every ten years that a group of dissidents would emerge and confront the system. The power does its cleaning, the people leave the country. Unfortunately, nothing lasts.
Miguel Coyula: It happens with filmmakers too: they make their first feature film – it’s a curious country, new artists emerge all the time – and then they leave. You can’t see their trajectory on the Island.
Trying to make your work outside of Cuba is much more complicated. That happened to me when I made Memorias del desarrollo (Memories of Overdevolpment), a film that critically analyzes the Revolution. “I have to film the scenes in Cuba,” I told myself. I discovered from the United States that all the oddities here are fertile ground, ideal material for working on dystopia. We live it every day, in a way that many foreigners cannot understand if they do not spend time living in Cuba. I needed to be in the conflict zone; I did not feel comfortable making a critical film about my country from outside.
The kind of cinema I am interested in making is that which goes to the darkest areas of the society in which one has to live. As they say in Elpidio Valdés: “The fire is here.”
Lynn Cruz. Reality is changing: what you saw one way a month ago, you now see in a different way. The country is changing at a dizzying pace, both for the better and for the worse – almost all of it for the worse – but you can’t understand it properly if you’re not there.
Miguel Coyula. In Chronicles of the Absurd there is a quote from [Fidel Castro’s] Words to the Intellectuals – curiously, as in the film, what is preserved is the audio– that is chilling: “The most revolutionary artist would be the one who was willing to sacrifice even his own artistic vocation for the Revolution.” It is terrible.
You have insisted on the clandestine nature of the recordings that support the film. How are you doing with the clandestine nature?
Miguel Coyula: I have always been outside the system. Lynn did work at the ICAIC. That is why in Chronicles of the Absurd I found it much more interesting that she was the protagonist, so that the process of erasing the person from the cultural life of the country could be seen gradually.
The way I film has always been the same, even when I have done so outside of Cuba. My first film, Cucarachas rojas, and Memorias del desarrollo were filmed largely in the United States. For economic reasons I had to make them the same way. It is, as they say, “guerrilla cinema.”
Chronicles of the Absurd, as Orwa Nyrabia, artistic director of the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival, said, is in some way a chronicle of the ten years we spent making Blue Heart, of many of its obstacles and of what it means to operate outside of institutions.
Lynn Cruz. The underground in Cuba is linked to the black market, and the cinema we make is similar. We are not magicians: we exist because there is a fracture in a society in transition, where what was previously, in theory, “for everyone” is being privatized.
In the midst of this economic chaos there is a place for us, otherwise you cannot exist. And clandestineness is not thinking that what we do is not known, but that the conditions exist for this cinema to emerge, and we must try to do it while we can. We do not know what the future of ourselves will be, because we do not know what the future of this country will be.
Miguel Coyula: In Corazón azul [Blue Heart] some actors left the project. You know from the start that if you’re going to spend ten years making a film, it’s not just because people are intimidated by security, but because reality and the interests of those people change.
Lynn Cruz. Chronicles of the Absurd is a dark making of the film Corazón azul, of how all those things were happening while we were filming. In some way it also connects with my book Crónica azul. We had to deal not only with creative and economic obstacles, but also with political persecution. Of course, each person has his or her own way of dealing with that. It is reality that condemns you to politics. Everything, absolutely everything, is politicized, because it is a totalitarian system and, in addition, you are making a film that questions that reality.
Miguel Coyula. The structural idea of Chronicles of the Absurd, in its ten chapters, fluctuates in situations that have to do with the absurd. It is a precept that goes beyond politics, but in the context of Cuba it is impossible to separate it. That explains the quote from Virgilio Piñera at the beginning of the film: “If Kafka had been born in Cuba, he would be a costumbrista* writer.”
*Translator’s note: Costumbrista: A trend or genre in Spanish language literature characterized by a portrayal and interpretation that emphasizes the country’s customs and types
Translated by Translating Cuba.