Category: Luz Escobar

The idea was to be able to present, with a more or less logical premise – one that allows the viewer to suspend disbelief – a Cuban of the present and another from the past, both situated on the two extremes of the chain, not the food chain but the utopian ideological chain.

Escobar. Epic was presented at the last Havana Film Festival. Will it go into regular screenings in the coming months?

Del Llano. I don’t know if will be scheduled, but I don’t much care. For me, it was very important that it was shown in the last Festival, although they gave me the worst possible times. At the Chaplin Theater, on a Sunday at ten in the morning, and, even worse than that, at the Infanta multiplex on Saturday at half an hour past midnight. Even I didn’t go there…

Escobar. How did the audience react?

Del Llano. People had a kind of catharsis. When it ended they clapped and even shouted “Bravo!”

Escobar. Surely this short will circulate in the weekly packet. How do you deal with piracy?

Del Llano. It has been a problem. I think I know pretty well how to make a movie up to the moment it ends, but I don’t have the slightest idea what to do with it then. Internally, I have no problems with the packet, I think it’s the Cuban equivalent of any broadcaster in the world. Where there is everything from the most ridiculous like Case Closed, to the highest quality Scandinavia cinema.

Escobar. Sex Machine Productions is a pioneer among independent producers. How has it managed to survive despite having no legal recognition?

Del Llano. Sex Machine Productions was a gentleman’s agreement between Frank Delgado, Luis Alberto Garcia and Nestor Jimenez. We agreed that we would do things like this as a cooperative, where I pay what I can and if at some point we hit it big and earn a lot of money, it will be distributed based on determined percentages that we adjust at that time, but it is not a producer in and of itself.

Sex Machine Productions is me. There are shorts where the character of Nicanor* does not appear, nor is there Frank’s music, nor do Luis Alberto or Nestor act in it, but it comes out under the same logo.

Escobar. You have feature films and many shorts. In what format do you feel more comfortable?

Del Llano. At one time I said that would only make shorts, not out of conviction, but because I felt comfortable with the shorts. Even my two feature films are not very long, one is 61 minutes and the other 73 minutes.

Escobar. What genre do you prefer?

Del Llano. I always thought – and I’m paying for it firsthand – that in Cuban cinema we should have science fiction, terror, erotica. I took the risk and now I’m coming up against the idea that, “and now this movie doesn’t seem Cuban because there are no prostitutes and no salsa music.”

Escobar. Are you a part of the group of filmmakers that is promoting a new Film Law, the so-called G-20 group?

Del Llano. There are a lot of misconceptions about what the G-20 is. We are a gathering of filmmakers where there are no directors, no art directors, no photography directors, and we meet as if as we are going to put fifty or sixty people to the task of writing a text, we choose a kind a “central committee” so there is an executive arm.

If at a meeting there is an agreement to draft a document, they are responsible for writing it. This is the G-20, but it is not “20 filmmakers fighting for a Film Law in Cuba,” because we are much more than that. Nor are we always the same people, although there are faces that remain, out of respect and visibility, which is the case with Fernando Perez.

Escobar. What have you achieved with your demands?

Del Llano. From the beginning we have tried to work with what is established, because it is about a law, not about a revolt. We have tried to fit it into the legislation that already exists, but also to start expanding it. At the first meetings there were representatives from the Ministry of Culture, I don’t know if there was also anyone from the Cuban Writers and Artists Union (UNEAC), but they don’t come anymore. I feel like they are waiting for us to get tired.

The October meeting last year ended with the adoption of a draft Film Law. The ball is now in their court.

Escobar. And so what’s missing?

Del Llano. What’s missing is someone who comes along and says, “this isn’t the way to do this and this”… to see it through the eyes of the censor, of the other side. In this sense we are a little stagnant, which doesn’t mean we are going to give up. We are not going to stop insisting, but we see no response.

Escobar. The last meeting was fraught with tension…

Del Llano. Hopefully not, but I suspect that the last meeting where the incident occurred with Eliecer Avila, they are going to use that to say, “See what happens when you meet,” and then throw some more shit on is. I Am not aware that it is going to be like this, but I suspect it.

The same attitude of ejecting someone from a gathering because they are considered “counterrevolutionary” is as if they were some Saint Benedict that you can’t get rid of, as if they were synonymous with a provocateur. Eliecer was sitting behind me and remained silent the whole time. Even when the issue came up of throwing him out.

Then, indeed, ICACI and UNEAC appeared saying, “we are revolutionary filmmakers.” So they did respond to this. What worries me is that the ICAIC, which the whole time has said it is on our side, reacted with this level of intolerance against someone who thinks differently.

Escobar. What projects are you working on?

Del Llano. What I have in hand are fake documentaries. I really like this format that few in Cuba have done. I did The Truth About G2 [Cuba’s State intelligence service], and the things that I have in mind come from that. For example, I published a novel last year and when Luis Alberto Garcia read it he said to me, “We have to make this novel into a movie.” For now it would be hard to do that because it requires an enormous budget.

It is titled Bonsai and is about a town in Pinar del Rio which is isolated from the rest of Cuba and there they build communism, but by chance. Even the things they do they don’t do well, but it comes out fine, thanks to chance. They construct a viable communism, with freedom, with democracy, with positive economic results, like it should have been, where everyone in the world does well.

I would love to film that story.

*Translator’s note: Nicanor O’Donnell, played by Luis Alberto Garcia, is the “anti-hero” character in several of Del Llano’s films. Read more here. The films are on YouTube, in Spanish

After the family reunion on stage, the show continued with the performance of Requium para un amor (Requium for a love) by the singer Miriam Ramos, followed by the versatile Fransico “Pancho” Cespedes, who sang the classic Ya ves (Now you see), and presented Milanes to a standing ovation from the audience.

The concert honored the theme Mis 22 años (My 22 years), five decades after it was composed, and had a luxurious guitar accompaniment by Jesus Cruz Dias. The song Cuanto gané, cuanto perdí (How much won, how much lost) preceded Los males del silencio (The evils of silence), a composition that recalls that “silence does not arise to live, silence is reborn to die.”

He could not skip Canto a La Habana (I sing to Havana) or Canción (Song), a theme that many know with the title De qué callada manera (In what a quiet way) and in which the verses of the poet Nicolas Guillen are set to music. Si ella me faltara aguna vez (If she misses me sometime) and Nostalgias echoed with the same freshness as those Días de Gloria (Days of glory). Meanwhile, Matinal (Morning), Plegaria (Prayer) and La libertad (Freedom) completed the first part of a concert where the voice of Milanes shone through, clean, fresh and clear, as always.

The presentation was recorded for the production of the album Aquellos 22 años, which will collect testimonies on the appearance of the song and what it has meant for Cuban music. The evening was especially dedicated to those in their twenties, although the audience was made ​​up of all generations.

In particular, those who came to the Karl Marx theater lived and loved with songs such as No ha sido fácil (It hasn’t been easy). Those who had seen, grown up and even grown old listing to Ámame como soy (Love me like I am) or Años (Years) were unmistakable, and Milanes sang his immortal phrase, “Time passes and we are getting old.”

Pablito was accompanied by a battery of excellent musicians such as Sergio Raveiro on bass, Esteban Puebla on guitar and keyboards, Edgar Martinez on percussion, Osmani Sanchez on drums and Germán Velazco on sax and flute. At the piano, as always, was Miguelito Núñez, also the musical director of the group.

Almost as a farewell the chords of Para vivir (To live) sounding, and of this immense theme, obligatory in Milanes’s repertory, the song named after a woman, Yolanda. The singer also left room to intone, along with his audience, El breve espacio en que no estás (The brief space where you are not), and the speakers rang with a selection of songs such as Pobre del cantor (Poor man, the singer), Hoy la vi (Today I saw her), and Yo no te pido (I am not asking you), while the audience said goodbye to an unforgettable Saturday night.

Fifty years of a song has just been an excuse for Pablo Milanes to bring joy to this Christmas, and to make the blue star of good music fall over Havana.

Since then, Christmas Eve has become more sophisticated for those who have access to hard currency. Twelve grapes at midnight and sangria are served on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. A mix of traditions typical of the Cuban melting pot. The government tries to emphasize the importance of the December 31^st festivities, the eve of the Triumph of the Revolution, but it is ever more obvious that in the last month of the year there is competition among dates.

Nougat, a Cuban tradition, turkey on sale for the equivalent of three month’s salary, and rum, lots of rum, combine in the menu that families in the emerging middle class will share. Almost eight years after allowing Cubans to stay in domestic hotels, these locales have launched a race to capture a broad spectrum of customers for Christmas Eve.

The Hotel Copacabana in Havana’s Playa district tries to compete with the area’s private restaurants. For 30 convertible pesos, the monthly salary of a surgeon, each person can serve themselves from a buffet with everything from the traditional turkey, to the most local, a shredded beef stew Cubans call “old clothes,” along with seafood, salmon, chops, smoked or cured loin and international cheeses. All that with a welcome cocktail, live music and Christmas cake.

Nearby, on Third Avenue, Gladys’s family is preparing a very different dinner. “I could only buy three pounds of pork because it is very expensive,” comments this retiree, whose daughter, who has emigrated, brought her nougat from Madrid. “The problem is that now there are so many expenses in December, with dinner on the 31^st and the 24^th,” complains the woman who insists she prefers “how it was until a few years ago, when this day was like any other.”

For Gladys’s family the expenses are not for food alone. “The littlest grandson wanted his tree, with the creche and everything,” says the pensioner. However, she acknowledges, “They are very nice days spent with family and it makes me remember when I was a child and my grandmother would sing carols and my parents put the gifts under the Christmas tree.”

In Santiago de Cuba the hotel with the same name has also been prepared for the occasion. The gourmet buffet, with prices that range from 45 to 50 convertible pesos per person, has options with Italian or Island food, along with a glass of wine. Something that seems like a dream for a province where poverty has spread in recent years.

The emerging middle class with fewer resources resort to deals that do not exceed 20 convertible pesos, drinks included. This is the case with the Havana Jazz Café, where for this price a person gets three glasses of wine, a variety of international food and a Cuban dessert. Jazz plays from the stage until after midnight.

State restaurants like The Bunny Rabbit serve “abundant local food with roast pork and a typical side dish” in Cuban pesos. Taking home a stuffed rabbit rises to 180 Cuban pesos, the monthly pension of a retired teacher. “We help you not have to cook for a celebration like this,” an employee at the door advertises with a menu in hand and a bow tie around his neck.

The ration system markets in Havana and other provinces have received an unexpected quota of frozen chicken. “It is for the anniversary of the Revolution” the butchers repeat, without much conviction. For many it has not gone unnoticed that the supply arrived on the shelves before Christmas dinner. “This is what you will eat tonight,” says Yaquelín, a impoverished resident of La Timba neighborhood, near the Plaza of the Revolution.

Cardinal Jaime Ortega y Alamino spoke about Christmas in a message broadcast on state television saying that it “is not a year-end party, is in itself a celebration of a great weight, historical, spiritual, cultural.” Although the prelate acknowledged that despite Cuban shops being full of Christmas decorations “we still do not know” what this celebration is about.

Others have their own delicacy reserved for the night, leaving aside traditions and overspending. “I bought a pack of little dogs (hot dogs) for today and I make them with with sauce, which my kids love,” says a polyclinic cleaning woman in the municipality of San Miguel del Padron. “After all Jesus was born in a stable, surrounded by pigs and cows, so you can not ask for more.”

Stories like this are repeated across the island, along with others where a power failure does not cost the life of a human being, but aborts a working day, cancels some bureaucratic paperwork, thwarts a tryst, or stops a movie halfway through. Power failures continue to be a constant in the lives of Cubans, despite the Energy Revolution launched a decade ago.

Among the main programs of this marathon campaign, led by Fidel Castro, was the placement of emergency generations in places key to the economy and public services. By 2007, 6,301 generators had been installed in the country, most of them of Chinese origin, of which 3,798 are still in place.

Although they continued to be imported and installed in different locations, the number of active installations did not grow significantly. Cuba 2014: Economic and Social Landscape noted that as of the end of that year 3,855 of these pieces of equipment were working, some 10% fewer than in 2013, and they were generating 19.9% of the country’s electricity. Each of these power plants uses 198 to 227 grams of diesel fuel per kilowatt.

Technological obsolescence, lack of spare parts and the diversion* of the fuel intended for these devices have combined to diminish their effectiveness and limit their social utility. This is confirmed by the testimony of Valdes himself who, upon detecting that the failure of the hospital generator was caused by the battery, told this newspaper: “There are no batteries in the whole country.”

This reality contrasts with the 2006 comments of Eusebio Martinez Rios, director general of the company belonging to Unecamoto Group which managed the installation of the equipment in the country. The official told the official press at that time, “They can last more than 20 years before undergoing major repairs.” A decade later, the number of faulty generators taken out of service exceeds a thousand per year. The Energy Revolution is in a tailspin.

Most of the equipment was installed in economically and socially prioritized locations, such as hospitals, polyclinics, hotel facilities and water pumping stations. In the heyday of the Energy Revolution consideration was also give to placing them in multi-story buildings, to maintain the elevators and water pumps in case of blackouts, but this did not happen. In some of these buildings you can still see the concrete structures meant to serve as bases for the “power giants.”

“The problem is that all the equipment has a certain lifespan and you cannot abuse them, and above all they need to be well maintained,” says Valdes, noting that presently the company has “no parts for these electric generators.” The equipment runs off fuel oil or diesel and they are also frequent victims of vandalism and “diversion of resources.”

“When we try to start up the electrical plant the fuel has been stolen,” a technician of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT) told 14ymedio. He experienced a power failure some years ago that shut down television across the whole country. “It had been assumed that the generator would allow us to continue broadcasting, but we couldn’t turn it on because it was dry,” he said. It took a very long 40 minutes to get the signal back up, while viewers were left in suspense in front of the screen.

In addition to technical problems and theft, this equipment generates pollution, especially the smoke they emit and the noise they make when they are running. Complaints by residents in the vicinity of the generators have become so frequent that Jorge Alvarez, director of the Environmental Regulatory Office, said in an edition of the official TV show Roundtable that the generators “pollute the environment with fumes, noise and vibration.”

Carlos Alberto Valdes resolved the hospital’s emergency — and protected the life of the patient — by taking a battery from another generator at the Surgical Clinic and moving it to the one in need. “Robbing Peter to pay Paul,” a hospital employee kept repeating as he stood by watching. The young woman who survived didn’t even know how close she came to dying, thanks to a capricious blackout and a broken generator that wouldn’t start.

*Translator’s note: “The diversion of resources” is an expression commonly used in Cuba in place of the more accurate phrase, “the theft of resources.” The thieves are often the managers and employees of the enterprise itself, who supplement their pitiful wages with “a little something off the back of the truck “ as one might say in the U.S.

Alcoholism is among the top ten causes of death in Cuba and specialists acknowledge that in the past two decades the consumption of such beverages has increased considerably. The share of men who drink is 47% while in the case of women it exceeds 19%. For females attached to a bottle, the drama is twofold, as they must face greater social rejection: both for drinking and for being women who do it.

Thin and short, Esther isn’t yet fifty years old but she already seems like a old woman. She worked at a downtown hotel in Old Havana for some years. “Every morning she would be all decked out,” remembers a neighbor in her building near the so-called Martyrs’ Park. “Now no one can stand to be three steps from her, everyone scorns her,” adds the lady.

The life of this Havanan sunk in addiction changed when she met Ignacio. With him, “every night was a party,” and at the beginning it was all “glamorous” but as the months went by, “we didn’t care any more which bar it was, as long as they served alcohol,” says Esther sadly, but without shame. Since then she has shared with him hugs and drinks, fights and nights of sleeping in any stairway they find.

She acknowledges she lost her shame the first time she had sex in a dark park with a stranger, just because he offered her a bottle filled with “good rum.” Then came the scandals at home when they didn’t open the door late at night, the fights in the bar because she didn’t have any money and “needed to keep drinking.” She remarked that yes, “in the beginning it is a desire,” but later on “it becomes a necessity.”

Violence is inextricably linked to the consumption of this substance. In Cuba between 20% and 69% of those hospitalized for injuries suffer from some disorder caused by alcohol, making alcoholism into the most prevalent chronic disease of patients with trauma, according to the report Projections of Public Health in Cuba 2015, drafted by the Ministry of Public Health.

To find some exit from the dead-end in which the disease trapped her, Esther’s mother took her by the hand to receive specialized care in a hospital. After receiving treatment and spending days in the hospital, they recommended she visit the nearest Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) group. Before going to the first meeting she had a relapse.

The experience of Alcoholics Anonymous in Cuba dates back to January 1993, after the visit of seven members of that organization from San Francisco. They founded the group Sueño (Dream) that started with nine members in some facilities of the William Carey Church in the Vedado neighborhood. A month later 50 Mexican AA members arrived to sponsor Cubans. Today, there are more than 200 groups throughout the country.

It was not until after her third hospitalization that Esther, “the star” of the Silvia bar, arrived at the AA meeting at Carmen Church, a few yards from her home. The first day she was overcome with shyness and found that of the six people who attended, she was the only woman. She notes that then “I let my tongue go” and “talked up a storm,” but confides with pain, resigned, that she has been unable to “go three months without drinking.”

The psychology student Erika Barrios Mancriff, of the Calixto Garcia Faculty of Medical Sciences, wrote her thesis on the testimony of 25 patients between 25 and 60 years of age, in Central Havana, just where Esther lives. An area which has the district’s highest incidence of addiction in the country, as confirmed by official sources.

Barrios Mancriff found, from the results of her research, that “these patients have low self-esteem while rejecting the behavior patterns of their families – many times their parents are also alcoholics – and yet they repeat these patterns of behavior.”

Esther’s parents, however, are like the neighbors everyone wants to have: quiet, saddened by the actions of their daughter, and willing to help her detox. To get to “their little girl” out of the hole she’s fallen into, they need her to start by recognizing that she needs help. For women it is more difficult to accept that they are addicted.

Women who suffer from this disease are more greatly disadvantaged than men. Esther says that “in the world of drunks, women are frowned upon,” adding that “most men lose no opportunity to take advantage.” She adds mischievously, “That’s why I sought a man equally drunken, like me, because even if he is always falling he defends me.”

She has been with him more than seven years, but he has never managed to overcome it with his stints in rehab or visits to the AA group. She suspects that maybe that is why she has never made it out “of the hole… Every time I get discharged from the hospital I go back to the house and there he is, in the same old thing,” she reflects.

Juan Emilio Sandoval Ferrer, president of the Cuban Society of Psychiatry Addiction Section, found that among the major challenges of the public health system is the prevention of alcoholism through education and promotion of healthy lifestyles in the population.

“There is very little talk about it and much less about the risk for women also,” says this graduate in history who spent more than a decade of her life fighting against the temptation to “tipple.” According to her, “the majority of my women friends take pills, like diazepam, chlordiazepoxide and amitriptyline, but nobody is shocked with that … Now, if I have a drink, everyone calls me a drunk.”

Research suggests that alcohol causes more damage in women who have less body water than men. Thus, the level of saturation or condensation of substances in the body is higher and the toxicity of the substance is faster and more intense. And social rejection makes them take longer to ask for help.

On Sunday, Esther did not go to the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where her companions in rehabilitation were waiting for her. A few yards from the church where the group meets, in the seedy Silvia bar, her uncontrolled laughter was heard all afternoon.

Asking at a pharmacy in the Cuban capital for this gadget of glass and quicksilver is like inquiring about an object from outer space. Faces of surprise and laughter are the employees’ response if a customer is looking for thermometers. At the clinic at the corner of Concordia and Campanario streets in Central Havana, a clerk told the frustrated buyer categorically, “We haven’t had any of those here for years,” like someone reporting the last sighting of an endangered species.

The customer, before leaving, resigned, took the opportunity to ask, “This medical power of a country, that sends doctors to fight Ebola… but doesn’t have any thermometers to check a simple fever…” Other customers silently nodded. Just a week ago official television confirmed in an extensive report the drug shortages threatening the country.

According to Barbara Olivera, head of the Operations Department of BioCubafarma, some 60 drugs classified as the “basic health core,” mainly those used to treat cancer, have disappeared from the national pharmacies. This is due to “accumulated production arrears since 2014,” the official said.

The loss of some foreign suppliers of raw materials and the “diversion of resources” [as employee theft is called in Cuba] were other causes identified for the shortages. Thermometers are not made in Cuba. They are imported from China, and are the mercury type, although many countries prohibit their use. They cannot be sold in Europe as of 2007, although they were sold in Spain until April 2009.

The national press harshly criticized the situation with medicines, but did not say a word about other products such as tape, elastic bandages, or bandaids. The Cuban people are so used to such shortages that you barely hear any complaints about the difficulties of getting something as simple as gauze, syringes, swabs or cotton balls.

Many resolve the problem by asking their relatives abroad to send them a thermometer. “At home, a couple of years ago, we had one sent to us by a cousin in the United States, but it was in Fahrenheit,” says Lourdes, 51. “I never understood how to convert to Celsius but we knew that over 100 degrees was a fever; but we can’t use it any more for lack of batteries.”

Even in the clean, well-stocked and air conditioned international pharmacies that sell in hard currency it’s not easy to find one. When they appear, the price ranges between six and ten CUC (approx. $6 to $10 US), according to the manufacturer, for sophisticated digital thermometers. In the pharmacies that sell in Cuban pesos those available are the mercury type and sell for three Cuban pesos (about 12¢ US).

But having hard currency guarantees nothing. In the Casa Bella store in Miramar, the helpful clerk says they don’t haven’t had thermometers for months and in response to a question says, “Don’t take the trouble to call others, they aren’t available in any pharmacy.” Behind her, a sign announces “excellent service.”

Customers at the Taquechel y Sarra tourist pharmacy, located in the historic center of Havana, receive the same response. “Beautifully restored, but few medicines,” says an old woman bitterly, on coming to buy pills for heartburn and leaving “stunned” by the prices.

The capital experiences only part of the problem. In June of 2014 in Granma province, the thermometer crisis reached a point where they didn’t even have them in the emergency rooms in the hospital network. However, people in the province could by them in the black market for 10 Cuban pesos. A similar situation occurred in Santa Clara, where some pharmacy clerks said the product hadn’t crossed their desks in more than 20 years.

Now the shortage has spread to all provinces of the country, as confirmed by this newspaper. In Pinar del Río an employee said that sometimes you could find digital thermometers in an entity of the Ministry of Public Health which she identified as “medical purposes” for a price of around 100 pesos. But “for a while now they haven’t had them,” she said.

The problem remains six months after the deputy health minister, Alfredo Gonzalez, assured the official press that Cubans would be able to buy such products “more easily” this year. Even Roberto Morales himself, Minister of Public Health, said they were taking the first steps, although they would not be able to meet the demand for the current year.

In his press conference, Simonet invited the members of the family of X Alfonso, lead manager of FAC, to “work together on a theme for the closing,” of the concert in Havana. The Cuban guitarist Ernesto Blanco and his brother David have also been invited, although the latter regretted that he cannot participate because of prior commitments.

The musician says that there was a musical connection with Simonet “from the first second”

The concert is part of British Culture Week, which started last Sunday in the Cuban capital. Initially, pianist Mike Lindup, member of the band Level 42, was expected to participate but he failed to arrive in time for the show.

Highlights of Miller’s musical career include, among many other moments, accompanying Sting in numerous performances and recordings. Asked about a possible visit by the former member of The Police, the guitarist said, “He came here once a few years ago,” and he was “very jealous because I had come before him.” He defined him as an “older brother” and said that he is trying to persuade him to come here with his production.

During the press conference this musician that Sting called his “right hand and left hand,” commented that accompanying Simonet and his orchestra hadn’t been complicated because “music is a language” and “there weren’t any problems when it was time to get down to work.” He said that three years ago he had the chance to work with Simonet in Germany and “from the first second there was a musical connection.”

Meanwhile, the director of Trabuco said that in the recording of Made in Cuba all the musicians from the Cuban orchestra participated. Both musicians thanks the FAC for giving them the chance to perform in one of its rooms and Miller added that it is “the ideal place” because it is “a house of fusion and new ways.”

Miller is originally from Argentina and began his career in the mis-eighties. He appeared with World Party and King Swamp and later participated in the album … But Seriously by Phil Collins. In the early nineties, he accompanied Sting in his albums and concerts, and shared with him the responsibility of memorable songs such as Shape of My Heart. His solo work began in 1995 with the album First Touch, and to date he has already released 10 albums, all instrumental.