Pavel Giroud talks about his new film, ’Comandante Fritz,’ inspired by Fidel Castro’s gift of a Cuban island to the GDR.
14ymedio, Jorge Fernández Era, Havana, 22 June 2025 — If any film in recent years starkly depicts the political exclusion following Fidel Castro’s revolutionary triumph, it is The Padilla Case. Despite being a documentary in the technical sense of the word, the suspense of its staging keeps viewers on edge and confronts them with one of the most repugnant events orchestrated against critical thinking and freedom of expression.
From Madrid, its director, Pavel Giroud, continues to delve into little-known chapters of Cuban history, as he recently did with the publication of the novel Habana Nostra . Now he promises to spark new debate with the film Comandante Fritz , which delves into a gift given by a similar leader to the German Democratic Republic in the 1960s, when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Eastern European socialism, and the CMEA stepped in to support the Cuban Revolution after the failure of the 1970 Sugar Harvest.
Jorge Fernández Era: Is your novel Habana Nostra [Our Havana] a frustrated film project or the validation of Pavel Giroud as a writer?
Pavel Giroud: To define it as a failed film project is something that could very well appear on my death certificate. As long as I’m alive, I’ll try, because it is a story I’m passionate about. I’m as saturated with the American vision of the mafia in Havana as I am with the official Cuban one. And I don’t want this to be perceived as a disdain for what has already been done—which has also nourished me—but rather as a complement, another approach, with a keen eye on facts and figures that until now had been treated with kid gloves or were merely occasional mentions. I believe I’ve achieved a depth of investigation that, combined with the experience I’ve accumulated over all these years as a filmmaker, could result in an engaging film.
I am as fed up with the American vision of the mafia in Havana as I am with the official Cuban one.
While I’ve enjoyed—and suffered, because nothing has been more exhausting—the process of writing this book, I don’t consider myself a writer in the strictest sense of the word. It’s a profession I respect with the same vehemence with which I demand respect for my own, in an age when anything audiovisual is defined as a film. I feel like a filmmaker who has written a novel. In any case, I feel more comfortable with the term “narrator,” a narrator who switches media to say what is on his mind.
You were one of the first to read and correct it before submitting it to the Azorín Prize, where it was a finalist. I vividly remember the relief I felt when you told me how impressed you were, because I’ve never felt the sensation of creative nakedness like I felt it when presenting this book.
Jorge Fernández Era: Is the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry currently a hindrance or a boost to audiovisual creation?
Pavel Giroud: Neither one nor the other, because they no longer know how to do either. In the times of Alfredo Guevara and Julio García Espinosa, they achieved both goals: they promoted a certain type of cinema and, with a certain skill, stifled unconventional cinema.
With Omar González, who was the one who first started filming with the institution, there was an unexpected turn of events. He understood that it was necessary to empower a new generation, as the sacred cows were dying or going into exile; a void was looming. But what happened was that he expected blind loyalty from us, and that didn’t happen. Even so, he drove more than he held back. He deserves credit for creating the Young Film Festival, in whose first edition I participated and which opened the doors to Tres veces dos [Three Times Two], and then to La edad de la peseta [The Age of the Peseta].
Today, the ICAIC lacks the capacity to promote the films it produces or to curb those produced on its margins. In fact, a phenomenon is occurring that, while not new, is stronger than ever: Cuban exile cinema. I myself have made more films outside of Cuba than when I lived there. The score is 4-3. All of them have had a more than decent run, and they haven’t been able to stop it.
Decades ago, a film like El Caso Padilla [The Padilla Case] wouldn’t have won the Platinum Award or been included in university curricula in France. It would have been boycotted at more than half the festivals it has been presented at, because the ICAIC, as an institution, and the so-called Cuban Revolution, as a symbol, held that power.
In the times of Alfredo Guevara and Julio García Espinosa, it achieved both missions: it promoted a type of cinema and, with a certain skill, stifled inconvenient cinema.
Jorge Fernández Era: The Padilla Case revolves around the self-incrimination of an intellectual in the face of harassment by the state’s repressive forces. Your most recent film, Comandante Fritz, is based on another true story from the 1960s: Fidel Castro’s gift to the German Democratic Republic of an island south of the archipelago. To what extent do you find Cuban absurdity obsessing?
Pavel Giroud: The Padilla Case occurred in 1971, and Commander Fritz in 1972, the year I was born. I’m not obsessed with absurdity; I’m obsessed with Cuba. The fact is that Cuban history—especially post-revolutionary history—is full of absurdities.
I remember that when we began the first readings of Comandante Fritz , the team—made up of Germans, Spaniards, some Cubans, and people of other nationalities—called the script surreal. And I told them, “No, it’s 100 percent realistic.” If I have one predisposition as a creator, it is to immerse myself in our history to explain its present.
Jorge Fernández Era: In a recent article, Abel Prieto refers to the so-called Five Grey Years as a period in which “mediocre and dogmatic people betrayed Fidel’s policies.” Could an exclusive cultural policy have been implemented without the Commander’s approval?
Abel Prieto is no fool; he knows this wasn’t a one-off mistake by a few agents
Pavel Giroud: I remember when I read the book Abel Prieto published on the Padilla Case, half a century after the incident, and saw that his thesis was intended to be the final straw on the subject, referring to specific errors by State Security agents, I said to myself: “You have no idea what I’m about to spill.” I think there’s sufficient evidence that Fidel Castro was involved in everything, and it’s not about the cultural policy of the Revolution; it’s about a very well-planned strategy of absolute power.
Abel Prieto is no fool; he knows this wasn’t a one-off mistake by a few agents. He knows this because he’s a conscious part of that Mussolini-style operating system, in which the State is everything and against the State, nothing. If anyone has championed this “cultural policy,” it’s him.
The difference between him and those he accuses isn’t precisely mediocrity or dogmatism; in that, they’re equal. The difference is that he chose to be faithful to that which grants him privileges. He’s as mediocre and dogmatic as the others he criticizes, and I dare say he’s even worse, because many of those he singles out today did believe in the value of the process they defended. And there’s a big difference between defending an ideal—even if it’s out of naiveté—and defending something to preserve the privileges it grants you. His attitude is miserable.
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