Category: Juan Carlos Cremata

Among the television series she has directed, among the memorable are Aunt Tata Tells Short Stories, And a Butterfly Says… and When I Grow Up. She began working in television in 1960 as choreographer for the program The World of Children, together with Carmen Solar and Edwin Fernández. She earned a doctorate in Pedagogy in 1962.

She was widowed by the explosion in mid-flight of a Cubana de Aviación flight in Barbados, on which her husband Carlos Cremata Trujillo, who worked for the state airline, was traveling.

Malberti was a discreet figure who avoided talking about her work, but in a recent interview she said that she hopes that the projects she participated would be “fun and educational” for the children, especially those who wanted to develop an artistic career. This “is a very attractive job, so dangerously attractive that children find it difficult to start and not continue,” she said.

Her remains will be cremated after a wake at the Calzada and K Street Funeral Home.

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After the dissolution of the company and the ban on Cremata’s working in film or theater in Cuba, the artist wrote letters of protest that were widely reported in the international media.

Invited by the PEN Club of New York to participate in the World Voices Festival, Cremata, age 54, decided to remain in the United States.

“When I sensed that in Cuba I would not be permitted to even ‘shoot a pea,’” I decided not to return to the island,” the filmmaker told the Miami newspaper.

“Some officials pressured a few friends who were helping me not to do so. Without saying a word it was clear that that they would not let me do anything more,” said Cremata, who said it was clear that he would be confined to “a low profile, which is like a living death.”

“They condemned me to ‘not be’,” he explained.

“And if the Revolutionary slogan is simply ‘homeland or death,’ the most logical and reasonable is to seek a life elsewhere, even it starting from scratch.”

Cremata is planning to initiate an ambitious project called “Memories of Exile,” to be published on social networks. He also plans to bring to life the work El Encarne (The Incarnate), “the only musical written by Virgilio Piñera, which has never been produced.”

“Come what may, I intend to continue making Cuban culture. To reflect truthfully and to speak with propriety about the millions of stories generated in exile,’ said the artist.

She hangs up and arranges things a little. She puts the armchair across from a specific chair and settles herself comfortably. She looks in a large briefcase, takes out a datebook and opens it to make some notes. The subordinates begin to enter. One in a checked shirt, another in a striped T-shirt, and third in a short-sleeved guayabera. They all carry something to write with and their faces are circumspect. A specialist also enters, with glasses and dyed purple hair. She is a little affected in her mannerisms. Almost ridiculous. Another comes later. He is a young man in a Che T-shirt. He is going to sit in the chair the president put in front of her when a warning from his boss stops him.

President: No, no, no. That chair is for [with the now customary disdain] the “artist.” I want him right in front of me so I can see the expression on his face. Find another chair. [To everyone] And before the “aforementioned” comes through the door, I have to tell you something. [With a certain authoritarianism] I do not want to hear any more comments in the hallway about my potentially leaving this post, because of a rumor, I don’t know where it came from, that I want to go to Venezuela because they are going to make my husband a correspondent for Telesur. Don’t let anyone get that idea. Because I am going to continue here. Leading you. On the front line.

This is the post assigned to me by the Party. If tomorrow it is the Basic Industry job, we’ll go there. But this is what I have to defend today. And I am going to do it until I’m given another mission. Is that clear? Secondly, I will deal with this alone. I want to say, when this “problem person” comes through the door, I am not going to listen to any comments. From any of you! No one needs to add anything. And if there is any doubt, we’ll settle it later. Did you tell Liudmila to come down?

Suddenly the Artist enters. Clearly in a different mood than everyone else present. Not better, not worse, just very distinct, different. As if he does not fit in that environment. The President assumes an even more arrogant air. She rises to welcome him.

President: How’s it going? Come, come. We were expecting you. [She orders from the door] Raisa, don’t disturb us! [She turns and with her hand points to the chair facing her armchair] Please, be so kind as to sit down.

The Artist sits at the center. Everyone looks surprised. The President returns to her place.

President: Liudmila didn’t come down? [Almost without pause] Fine, it doesn’t matter, we’ll start without her. We won’t take too much time on this. [To the Artist] Look, I’ll get straight to the point. It is important that you understand that we greatly respect your work. We have followed you for a long time. Even from when were at the Youth Cadre School… [she stops talking for a moment and changes her attitude] you have done so much, dear heart. So much and for so long. And we have let you do it. But that’s good now. I think now is the time to stop. And you can rest.

I have felt betrayed, mocked and even wounded to the depths of my feelings. Because here we have put our complete faith in the work you were preparing. And suddenly, we saw “it,” what you staged last Saturday. And there was no level of artistic metaphor. The language was poor, direct, reactionary and vulgar. But worst of all is the frank mockery of the historical leader of our Revolution. A complete lack of respect for a person who has done so much for us in our country. And who is now very sick, poor man. And this is something we can’t allow! Not me, not any of us here. [She looks at everyone.] Isn’t that right? [They all nod their heads.]

So, in the name of the freedoms we have achieved over the years for our theater movement, we feel obliged to censor your show. If you want, we will explain it to the actors, we will issue a public note, I don’t know. And it doesn’t matter to me that we have spent a lot of money on the production, and on all the publicity. Or that you have spent so many months of rehearsing and so much work in the preparation. As it stands, this production has no possibility of being changed. And it cannot continue. Do you have something to add?

The artist looks at everyone without understanding what he just heard. Some avoid his gaze. They look at the ceiling as if they were looking for answers. He raises his arms a little bit, almost as if he were asking for mercy. And with that he gets up and leaves. Everyone is stunned.

President [speaking to the Che T-shirt): You! Prepare an article with enough theoretical foundation that explains everything that happened, our rationale and that the production is cancelled. [To the one with affected mannerisms] Draft a note for me as soon as possible to publish the ban. Very brief. Without a lot of details. The less explanation the better. [To the striped shirt] Valdes Malo, find the Ministry’s attorney to begin drafting a resolution that dissolves this damn theater group and ends any chance that this “harmful agent” will continue directing theater in this country. I will inform the minister. Don’t lose any time. We have to act quickly. The enemy is lurking here. Among us. On all sides. And we must attack.

They depart quickly and leave her alone. She approaches the stage, triumph on her face. Music with heroic overtones plays but stops abruptly at the insistent ringing of a cellphone. She answers.

President: Tell me, my life [pause]. No, no, everything’s fine [another pause]. Not one word. What could I say? This time we’re done with him! [She changes her tone, sounds more desperate] Have you heard anything from Telesur?

Then her face is flooded with deep frustration. She goes to the door and screams.

President: Raisa, where is the tea, please? I need it yesterday.

She drops crestfallen into the armchair as the curtain falls. Applause without much emotion. They are the same characters forever. The infinite and constant comedy. Such is the theater in today’s Cuba.

The letter was made public via email with the consent of the author, who sees no “contradiction in discussing a cinema law which we are fighting for, in which it is explicitly guaranteed that the law supports us to defend the culture against the exercise of a censorship which calls itself revolutionary.”

Colina, a man of great prestige without the Cuban film industry, and the creator of a work that enjoys great popularity, says in the message that accompanied the letter that there is an “ethical deterioration fed by neglect, corruption and the most cowardly and opportunistic faking.” As the only remedy, the director of the films “Neighbors” and “The Marble Cow” calls for a ripping away of “this gag that the bureaucratic bastards want to impose on committed artistic expression.

“After so many years preaching Marxism-Leninism it seems that the custodians of the orthodoxy of silence have forgotten the laws of dialectics“

“After so many years preaching Marxism-Leninism seems that the custodians of orthodoxy of silence have forgotten the laws of dialectics,” Colina reflects strongly, adding that “faith and obedience to immobility seem to be the altars of worship at which we convene with their damning anathemas and excommunications,” and, in a colloquial tone concludes: “But no, my friend, we protest.”

“There is already a stagnation in citizen awareness and ideological exhaustion from the spent propagandistic character of the media,” says the letter. “This conduct of intolerance expresses well the weakness and the intellectual and political shabbiness to take on an open and responsible debate,” he added.

“What real constructive sense does an exclusive censorship bring to the debate between those who undertake these artistic activities and are potentially the subjects of this same arbitrariness,” asks the director.

Colina’s support is added to a long list of cultural figures inside and outside Cuba who have denounced the censorship against the play the The King is Dying (also produced in English as: Exit The King), directed by Cremata and closed down last September. Later, the authorities revoked Cremata’s contract as a theater director.

Just a week ago, Cremata announced a fundraising campaign to “continue independent work in film and theater in Cuba,” a gesture that opens the way to self-financing after decades of working with the Cuban Institute of Art and Film Industry (ICAIC) and the National Council for the Performing Arts.

In the body of the resolution it says the director provoked an ethical-professional conflict with the management of the Theatre Center and the National Council for the Performing Arts, who legally represent and sponsor him.” According to the official explanation, Cremata made intemperate attacks on these institutions through the foreign press and social networks, incompatible with the social object for which the above-mentioned project was created, leading to a lack of confidence in the artist, all of which disqualified his projects as institutional interests.”

The authorities resolved to halt project El Ingenio Project, ending its sponsorship by the Theater Center. Furthermore, they added, the employment contract in the artistic branch of the Director Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti, will be terminated.”

In light of this opinion, the artist states, “Thus is censorship and the exercise of ‘freedom of expression’ legally consolidated in our country, in the 21st century.”

Cremata adds that, The measure was taken without consultation with the National Theater Awards or with other artist guilds. It was a simple vendetta. A calculated summary execution.”

The document is signed only by Marvin Yaquis, director of the Theater Center as employer of the artist, although Cremata identifies as directly responsible Gisela Gonzalez, president of the National Council for the Performing Arts.

“And so there is no mercy for those who think differently. “To the wall*” for those of us who refuse to remain silent. What will be the next step to finish burying me?” asks the film and theater director.

WHEREAS: In the months of July and August 2015, the theater director Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti, who directs the El Ingenio Project provoked an ethical-professional conflict with the management of the Theatre Center and the National Council for the Performing Arts, who legally represent and sponsor him, by undertaking intemperate attacks on these institutions through the foreign press and social networks, incompatible with the social object for which the above-mentioned project was created, leading to a lack of confidence in the artist, all of which disqualified his projects as institutional interests.

And further (…)

RESOLVE

FIRST:  The Project El Ingenio, given its representation by the Theater Center’s performing branch, will be halted.

SECOND: By way of the necessary document, the employment contract in the artistic branch of the Director Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti, will be terminated.

Thus is censorship and the exercise of “freedom of expression” legally consolidated in our country, in the 21^st century.

The measure was taken without consultation with the National Theater Awards or with other artist guilds. It was a simple vendetta. A calculated summary execution.

And so there is no mercy for those who think differently. “To the wall*” for those of us who refuse to remain silent.

It is a sad time and space in which we have had to live.

What will be the next step to finish burying me?

Draw your own conclusions.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The outrageous document is signed only by the Director of the Theatre Center in his role as an employer, but everything was done to cravenly avoid criticism of the real person responsible for this offense: Mrs. Gisela Gonzalez, president of the National Council of Performing Arts. The Director of the Theater Center, Marvin Yaquis even expressed his deep regret at having to do something he did not like, which he was forced to do.

Please, do not blame him.

He is only the spokesman for the ignominy, the one who carries out the sentence of death “in life” to which I have been condemned.

*Translator’s note: Paredón! – meaning “to the execution wall” – was the infamous shout from the crowds at the show trials against its “enemies” with which the Castro regime inaugurated its taking power in 1959.

If I remember correctly, you were also at the meeting where I was called in front of the “top brass” of the National Council for the Performing Arts to communicate to me the suspension of the season. And now I have no doubt that many of the views expressed in the letter respond in a personal way to the signals, although with harsher epithets such as “treason” and “political pamphlet,” from Gisela Gonzalez herself, who serves as President of Theater Arts in Cuba.

I do not know which came first. If it was hers or yours.

Raul could say it in his speech, but the theater, no. We were not authorized to expose it. Raul is applauded of course. Who dares to contradict him?

But either way, its deep and accelerated study comes to explain a little more the absurd and unintelligible initial note, suddenly appearing in CUBARTE, about the changes in programming at the Tito Junco Hall of the Bertolt Brecht Cultural Center, which did nothing more than hide a blatant censorship.

However you are smarter and saner. Your analysis is respectable, although conditioned.

And I am, believe me, very grateful to the attempt to elucidate a little all the indecipherable nebula that we try to stage. Your praise is also gratifying, your eulogies and superlatives, which I humbly hope to deserve.

However, it is likewise a little unfair and inexact, although entirely within your rights as a critic – not as a researcher – to offer an opinion in such a closed and categorical way about an artistic phenomenon, taking into account, only, your work as a screener.

In Art, as in every other subjective display, or even in medicine that is backed by science, that which could be good for you (all of you) not necessarily because it is for others.

Or for us, the others.

If any of you had attended the play on Sunday, you would have found another moment that, although essentially the same, wasn’t that staged on Saturday. I often tell my friends that it is better to attend the last evenings, when the actors and technicians have already tested, and even more savored, an experience that is enriched and transformed with each delivery.

Especially when the work staged by our collective depends heavily on the interaction with the audience to which your commentary refers. And where, in addition to the “mockery” to which you (or all of you) alluded to, there is a declared intention to rescue a very Cuban form of theater, quasi-lost or misplaced-censored-by-force-for-more-than-50-years, but that characterized the entire Cuban vernacular theater with the regular practice of political satire as a commentary on what happens in our country.

Shameless, excessive, irreverent (which is not the same is disrespectful), iconoclastic, rebellious, and sometimes even vulgar or profane, which you do not know, floods our countryside and cities. And it seems to be the language generated by the “New Man” that is forged in this imprecise society imposed on us.

Our intent with this staging was to talk about the resistance to change. Scathing obstinacy that today is made manifest again with the erratic decision of the Council itself

The theater is a live event, as is well known.

It is catharsis, shock, tremor and disturbance, above all in its relationship to the spectator. Be he for or against. Worse is to go to a play and return as if one had never gone. Is this what you want? Gallant and constant praise? A nice musical, naïve and inoffensive. The critique of what is authorized? The reinterpretation of our history, without questioning the present and much less the future? Independence restricted? The freedom of the ration book?

Because the ration coupon frees me? How much will this month’s emancipation cost me?

They are selling free will! Run! Run! They’re almost out of it!

We could point out a few years ago the same Council for Performing Arts, protected by a supposed “respect for the change in programming,” suppressed the huge success that we were having with our staging of the Rogelio Orizondo’s Le hijastra (The Stepdaughter) – without our even having seen much of them – and dealing with the disproportionate, frustrating and malicious comments that they immediately silenced when, a few months later, Raul Castro himself noted the same approach of “social indisciplines” with which all of Cuba is flooded.

Raul could say it in his speech, but the theater, no.

We were not authorized to expose it.

Raul is applauded of course. Who dares to contradict him?

We were condemned to exile in the same room to which we return, after four years, to again experiment, today with the decision to end our proposal, once again with the same punishment, the exact penalty, with the identical penance.

And, even worse.

We gave 14 performances of The Stepdaughter.

For The King Dies, we could only offer two.

It is the third try. And the third time is lucky.

Previously an onerous scandal was also unleashed with the presentation of El Frigidaire (Le Frigo) by Copi.

But this time they were definitive.

The affront to power is now unbridgeable.

And the barrier definitively raised, saying: Not one more, this far and no further They shall not pass!

They have gone too far.

Down with the embarrassment! Up with the stain!

At the same time, I want to add to the examples of theater collectives, which you (all of you) point to as worthy and paradigmatic (and to which you should undoubtedly also have added the commendable excellence of the Argos Theater, Theater de las Estaciones, Theater de la Luna or Theater Tuyo, among other very few examples), those which could contrast the work of more than a dozen collectives, where indeed no artistic metaphor or poetry flourishes. Where the proposal goes toward that radiant poverty of which not so long ago one of our media leaders boasted.

What about the profusion of revolting and senseless events whose only ambition is the sale of our art abroad?

Or the hundreds of political lampoons that we have had to shoot every day for so many years live and on television?

Or the thousands of public events where money is wasted by the boatload and bad taste is encouraged, the ineffectiveness, the falsehood and the injustice?

Recently an admired and recognized Cuban writer, also harassed from time to time, noted how little educated we Cubans have been in these times of the management, the habit, the cult of tolerance.

Most importantly – and I know you will agree with me, although feeling it in secrecy and not able to express its depth – the National Arts Council has every right to make known its differences, disagreements and decisions against a specific staging in its jurisdiction.

The abuse of an absolute power that holds, sustains and exposes the cruel exercise of an infamous censorship

But that does not exclude the qualifier of an immoral, medieval and incomprehensible measure, the abuse of an absolute power that holds, sustains and exposes the cruel exercise of an infamous censorship.

I shut you up to make myself heard.

Me. Me. And me.

And to not hear anything else.

Nor anyone else.

Typical behavior in the entire reign, dictatorial regime, or simply despotism.

Nepotism exemplified. Manifest and brazen arbitrariness.

Where is the possibility that others express opinions?

Why, and who, arrogates to himself the right to decide what others must think, propose or feel?

What right does anyone have to dictate the thinking of everyone?

These are other times, esteemed colleague.

A pandemic of freedom is flooding our senses.

If anyone disagrees with what we do, there will never be anything worse than condemnation and the penalty of silence, the penance of ostracism, the expiation of ignorance and the elimination, at a single blow, our freedom of artistic expression, our right to be wrong, our will and perennial vocation to argue, and even dissent, which doesn’t mean, although it could be so, to be against.

Our intent with this staging was to talk about the resistance to change. Scathing obstinacy that today is made manifest again with the erratic decision of the Council itself.

And it is not absolute and unconditional truth that we tried to make reference to a monarch, a chief, or any leader. Indeed, we are consciously trying to avoid it, although we knew full well that the sickly reading of these days would go, obligatorily, in that direction.

In the name of “national-socialism” we are restricted, repressed, sanctioned, gagged, trampled and hidden. This is embracing fascism. Pure. Absolute.

The actor who played King Eggplant the First studied the gestures of the great French comedian Loius de Funes, rather than delving into the nearer characters of our everyday lives.

You (all of you) could say and allege what you want. In addition, you can do it, because you have all the media under your control to disseminate it. They read the play and assumed the risk. They neglected the delivery.

But what is neither wise nor judicious, and it runs counter to the century in which we live, is the useless spell to silence others.

To decree and dictate the persistent and stubborn silence.

There is no right.

It is only imposed by force.

And where there is force reason pales.

It is helplessness facing the terror.

The bitter impotence of the offense.

The dream orphaned

The truth mocked.

Insisting on the error to drown in it.

In the name of “national-socialism” we are restricted, repressed, sanctioned, gagged, trampled and hidden. This is embracing fascism. Pure. Absolute and integral. The same as burning books and stigmatizing races, sexes, colors and even thoughts and ways of being. And it is also apartheid.

Like Fassbinder says, “Fear devours their souls.”

Nor is your observation about my most recent film work accurate, using precisely the example of Crematorium 1: in short… the evil, which is a project whipped by others, slyly veiled, or at least not officially released, and it has been appreciated only though this legalized and incoherent piracy that senselessly feeds our State.

That is, not even in the cinema are my “politically incorrect” steps well regarded by the nomenklatura, by the opportunistic, dull and mediocre bureaucracy that supports authority these days.

I am very clear-sighted and have learned since I was born that to be a revolutionary is NOT to be obedient nor to abide by the letter of everything that comes from “above.” That is being a sheep. That is: it is to be sheeplike.

From higher up come the things of God and you people disregard them.

He forgives you.

Our reason for being is to create. And we continue to do it. Although you would try to cut our wings. You can never crush thought.

Your duty (the duty of all of you) has been founded in mutilating, suspending, silencing, stopping, paralyzing, stalling, limiting, hindering, delaying, denying, and even unto death.

Our nation is its culture and our nationality as well.

Long live art!

The rest is cheap, hollow politicking.

And enough of hypocrisies, that you (all of you) do not feel.

Translator’s notes:

*The title is play on words of Fidel Castro’s defense in his trial for the Moncada Attack where he wrote: “Condemn me, history will absolve me.”

** The play has been staged in the United States under the name “Exit the King”