Cuban Police Pursue Tania Bruguera While Germany Invites Her to an Art Exhibition

Tania Bruguera at her home in Havana in 2015 during a staged 100-hour reading, analysis and discussion of Hannah Arendt’s book ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism’. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 8 February 2021 — The Hannah Arendt International Institute of Artivism (Instar), founded in Havana by the artist Tania Bruguera, has been selected to participate in the 15th edition of documenta, the prestigious contemporary art exhibition held in Kassel, Germany, currently scheduled for June 18 to September 25, 2022. On this occasion, the theme of ​​the community of social art and the usefulness of art in society will be addressed.

It is the second time that Bruguera has participated in this exhibition, having previously attended in 2011. On this occasion, her participation becomes even more relevant, if possible, due to the discrediting campaign launched against the artist by the Cuban government media and the harassment she has been subjected to on the part of State Security, which has prevented her from leaving her home under threat of arrest since 27 January, when a dozen artists were physically attacked by the Minister of Culture himself, Alpidio Alonso, while carrying out a peaceful sit-in in front of the official headquarters.

“This invitation should not be ignored by the Ministry of Culture, an institution with which we independent artists from Cuba are trying to have a dialogue in which our work is recognized and our spaces are legalized,” Bruguera explains to 14ymedio. It would not hurt for the ministry to see this, she says, as a sign that independent artists have “a force that is not in competition with the institution” and that they can “reach places of great prestige on their own.” continue reading

Tania Bruguera, whose work has always been critical of the regime, has been periodically harassed by the Government since December 2014, when she tried to organize a performance in the Plaza of the Revolution with the title of Tatlin’s Whisper #6, but the most recent attack began on November 27, when she was one of the most visible heads of the peaceful demonstration in front of the Ministry of Culture, where more than 300 artists and intellectuals demanded the freedom of those who were detained after their eviction from the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement, and the end of the persecution of artists.

Since then, Bruguera has been briefly arrested on several occasions and the official press has published articles dedicated to the artist, calling her a “mercenary” and accusing her of receiving financing from abroad, as is business as usual with regards to critical figures who acquire some relevance. On January 14, Bruguera filed a complaint at the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT) in response to the broadcast of a program in which “they distorted, defamed and fostered negative opinions” about her, and she argued that a “government that is believed to be above the law and constantly violates the Constitution” must be fought.

“The best response that can be given to the defamation and attacks of the National Television Newscast and the official organ of the PCC is to let them know that today the inclusion of the Hannah Arendt International Institute of Artivism (#INSTAR) in documenta 15 has been announced, the most important exhibition of plastic arts in the world,” she wrote on her social networks after hearing the news of her selection to appear at the exhibition.

The artist believes that this decision is “the recognition of independent art in Cuba… I think it is not a celebration for Instar, it is a celebration for independent artists. It recognizes their need and relevance, and the impact they have,” she said. Instar has worked since its founding on civic education through art and has been a great supporter and promoter of independent artists.

The documenta exhibition is held every five years and includes a selection of between 80 and 100 artists from around the world chosen “for their quality and their track record.” This time the Indonesian group ruangrupa will be the artistic director for the exhibition. “It is something new because previously it had always been a chief curator who made the selection and for the first time a group has been chosen.”

“What the group has proposed is that this time the decisions will be made not by a single person, it is a little slower, but more democratic. All the people in the group, plus the team of curators, plus the other invited artists will be the ones who approve and vote and discuss the relevance of whether or not a project becomes part of the group. In this case I am happy to say that Instar was approved unanimously by all the jurors,” said Bruguera.

Instar’s participation in documenta, which has been in development now for a year and a half, also means that the artist is learning about other projects similar to those of her collective. “Exchanging ideas, experiences with similar projects of social art, political art, civic, learning and creating an international support network with other projects from the five continents,” she adds.

____________

COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Artist Tania Bruguera Files Defamation Complaint Against Cuban Television

The artist Tania Bruguera (left) filed the complaint at the ICRT headquarters. (Courtesy)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana | 15 January 2021 – On Thursday, the artist Tania Bruguera delivered a complaint against the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT) for the content of a broadcast on Wednesday, in which “they distorted, defamed and created negative states of opinion” about her.

“They misrepresented my work, they misrepresented who I am, what my actions are about, and I decided to submit the complaint to the ICRT due to this discrediting campaign,” the artist told 14ymedio. “We cannot continue to accept that activists and artists in Cuba are defamed and lied about simply because they have a different way of thinking.”

In recent weeks, journalists, independent media and artists have been the subject of attacks and slanders broadcast on the Primetime News segment titled Cuba’s Reasons, and repeated in the official print media. Most of their targets are branded as mercenaries and linked to sources of funding in the United States. This Wednesday they were described as “new operators of the counterrevolution,” who are committed to “an openly anti-Cuban and annexationist agenda,” the latter implying they want Cuba to become a US state.

“We must use legal resources, because this is a government that is believed to be above the law and that constantly violates its own Constitution. We, the citizens, have to start using the laws in our favor and defending ourselves from their abuse,” said Bruguera. She also noted that she filed a defamation lawsuit against the Government in 2018.

Bruguera was one of the artists who stood on November 27 in front of the Ministry of Culture to demand dialogue after the arrests of Denis Solis and the strike by the San Isidro Movement, with which she is linked. Since then, she has been arrested and interrogated several times, for hours at a time. In addition, she has been prevented from leaving her home, which is why the artist has considered herself “under house arrest without any explanation” during this time.

The entire San Isidro Movement has suffered similar situations, with arrests, harassment and surveillance, while the government describes its members as “terrorists financed by the empire.”

____________

COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Instar Offers Four Spaces for ‘Coworking’ at its Headquarters in Old Havana

The four spaces will be used to hold workshops, meetings, master classes, and public events. (Facebook / Instar)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 6 January 2020 — The Hannah Arendt International Institute of Artivism (Instar) has made available to other independent projects three spaces for coworking, shared offices, at its headquarters in Old Havana, according to an announcement published this Tuesday on its social networks.

In a country marked by a housing deficit and few places for the development of independent initiatives, Instar seeks to support the growing demand for facilities to meet and work during the development of projects that do not enjoy the favor of officialdom.

“We have two types of spaces, short-term, for people who need a few hours to work with their team or hold a workshop, of those we have three,” artist Tania Bruguera told 14ymedio. “We are also going to have a space for people who need to do long-term projects, for example a week to finish a project with your team and you need to come every day and leave work items in the space.”

The artist commented that “a computer, a sound system, a projector and of course, the Instar library,” will also be available to the participants. continue reading

The practice of so-called coworking has spread internationally in recent years, but in Cuba it has only just begun hand in hand with entrepreneurs and spurred by the economic crisis that has deepened with the pandemic. So far, there are few initiatives of this type on the island aimed at civil society, independent artists, and activism.

The four locations will be used to hold workshops, meetings, master classes, and public events. The artist also explained that those interested only have to send an email to Instar to organize the schedules according to the availability that exists, “it’s free,” Bruguera said.

“It is known that the independent world in Cuba works under a constant state of siege and in precariousness because it cannot aspire to certain perks that the Government gives to other projects and we wanted to support that,” the artist declared.

“Collaborative work is a solution for the inconveniences of isolation and independence inherent to the experience of working at home,” the statement explained, detailing the new opportunity as “an outlet” for artists or activists in search of a venue.

The text emphasizes that work rules will be established very soon, “for peaceful coexistence with the rest of the projects involved.” The announcement concludes with, “The doors of Tejadillo 214 are open for you.”

____________

COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Cuban State Security Continues to Harass the San Isidro Movement

Police surveillance in front of the house of the artist Tania Bruguera, in Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 20 November 2020 — A police cordon around the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement, in Old Havana, has blocked pedestrians since since last Monday. State Security arrests anyone who tries to reach the place, where seven activists remain confined in protest of the sentence of eight months in prison for the rebellious rapper Denis Solís.

One victim of State Security is the independent journalist Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho, who was arrested around one in the afternoon on Thursday and released 24 hours later.

“I was in the Zanja police station, they did not give me a mattress to sleep on, and my back is wrecked,” he told 14ymedio after being released this Friday at noon.

The mother of Iliana Hernández, a contributor to the Cibercuba site, was also intercepted this Thursday afternoon, when she wanted to visit her daughter, who is on a hunger strike for Solís’s freedom, convicted of the crime of “contempt.” continue reading

In addition, surveillance continues in front of the houses of other activists to prevent them from going out onto the streets, including the artist Tania Bruguera and Michel Matos, a member of the opposition group, who denounced that they have been surrounded for three days. “They do not allow me to leave my own house under penalty of arrest and confinement in one of the many smelly dungeons in Havana … They have limited my internet, I cannot navigate or communicate,” Matos said on his Facebook profile.

Brugera said that, in her case, the surveillance of the police and State Security began on Monday. “Since then, they have taken the internet from me (I already found a way to connect at least once a day). They will not stop our solidarity with our brothers and sisters from MSI, Patria y Libertad!”, she wrote on her social networks.

Adrián Rubio, one of the strikers, announced that this Friday morning three State Security agents visited his mother to persuade her to ask her son to abandon the protest and to leave the Movement’s headquarters.

“They told her that I was now involved in a group of murderers. That everything is a just an act, that we are not on a hunger strike. And that everything is an invention because we are demanding the freedom of a prisoner who is serving time for attempted murder,” he reported. The agents also warned her that his son “neither works nor studies” and that when he leaves the movement’s headquarters that can charge him with “pre-criminal dangerousness” or take him to Pinar del Río “to do military service.”

The Hannah Arendt International Institute of Artivism, directed by Tania Bruguera, expressed solidarity with the activists and their peaceful protest: “There is no justification for the illegality, arbitrariness and inhumanity of these repressive strategies on the part of the State to restrict the freedom of expression.”

The activists reported from the group’s headquarters that Humberto Mena decided to abandon the strike for “personal reasons.” They said that upon arriving at his home, Mena was searched by State Security agents, taken to an unknown place and released after a few hours.

Similarly, the artist Yasser Castellanos reported in on his social networks that he could not continue with the strike because he felt a lot of “discomfort.”

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Esteban Rodríguez, Maykel Castillo, Iliana Hernández, Adrián Rubio, Oscar Casanella and Osmani Pardo continue on hunger strike, and this afternoon it will be 48 hours since the protest began.

Also at the headquarters are Anamely Ramos, Katherine Bisquet, Omara Ruiz Urquiola, Jorge Luis Capote, Niovel Abu Alexander Tamayom and Anyell Valdés Cruz.

____________

COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

The Artist Tania Bruguera Suffers an Act of Repudiation and Insults in Havana

Bruguera was trying to access the street where the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement is located. (EFE)

14ymedio biggerEFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 13 October 2020 —  The artist and activist Tania Bruguera was the object of an “act of repudiation” this Monday in Havana, when several people surrounded, insulted and harassed her until she left the Old Havana neighborhood she was trying to access.

“Bitch,” “mercenary,” “filthy” and “get out of here” were some of the expletives launched against Bruguera by a group of about twenty people who later shouted “Fidel, Fidel,” according to a video released shortly afterwards on social media.

Bruguera — known for her political performances and for having participated in events at the Tate Modern in London and the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York, among others — was trying to access the street where the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement is located.

Click image to open Tweet with video

The act of repudiation against Tania Bruguera in the San Isidro neighborhood. This was published on the official Prensa Latina site under a profile with the face of Karl Marx and under the name of Mario Valdés. Listen to the civility of what the crowd is shouting at Tania. — Rolando Nápoles (@RNapoles) October 12, 2020 continue reading

The members of the San Isidro group, which advocates freedom of expression in the country, have denounced having been the subject of continuous arbitrary detentions and harassment by State Security in the last year and a half.

Last Saturday, commemorating the start of the independence wars in Cuba, almost a score of independent activists, artists and journalists, including Bruguera and members of the San Isidro Movement, were detained for several hours.

The group had planned a Concert for Freedom at its headquarters, and on the occasion of the anniversary released a “statement against police violence in Cuba” in which it denounced that its headquarters had been subjected to “a strong siege” for days. None of the planned events came to fruition.

On that same day, the art curator Anamely Ramos and the writer Katherine Bisquet also suffered an act of repudiation at the doors of the former’s house, where several women intimidated them with shouts and prevented Ramos from leaving and Bisquet, who was going to visit her, from entering. Both were detained for a few hours.

The incidents, widely reported on social networks with videos of the most tense moments, provoked criticism from many Internet users on the Island.

________________

COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Detentions and Threats to Prevent a Demonstration in Front of the Yara Cinema

The zone around the cinema, at the corner of Avenue 23 and L, in the center of the capital, threatened to be overrun by agents of the Ministry of the Interior. (Facebook/Jesús Jank Curbelo)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, June 30, 2020 – Several activists have denounced detentions and threats this Tuesday after being prevented from attending the demonstration called for 11:00 in front of the Yara cinema in Havana, to request justice for the murder of Hansel Ernesto Hernández at the hands of the police this past Thursday.

The zone around the cinema, at the intersection between Avenue 23 and L, in the center of the capital, threatened to be overrun by agents of the Ministry of the Interior, according to several witnesses. One of them said that in the streets next to the theater, there were several buses with soldiers inside, one of them with only women, dressed in green.

The artist Tania Bruguera was detained early in the morning by agents of State Security when she left home, according to her Facebook page. continue reading

“Tania Bruguera was taken (we still don’t know if it was by soldiers or police dressed as civilians – a kidnapping) leaving her house at this precise moment (6:17 Cuban time) to prevent her presence at the peaceful demonstration that will take place today in several points of the country against #PoliceViolence,” said the publication.

Other activists, artists and independent journalists also reported on their networks, with the hashtag #30JunioCuba, that they were surrounded at their homes or received warnings from State Security to not go out in the street today.

The writer Ariel Maceo Téllez says that two State Security agents woke him up to tell him that he was under house arrest for eight hours without clarifying the reason. In the same way, the independent journalist María Matienzo said on her social networks that a “supposed Major Alejandro” knocked on her door to prohibit her from leaving for the whole day.

The activist Juan Antonio Madrazo Luna, coordinator of the Citizens Committee for Racial Integration, said on his Facebook page that the night before, he went to throw out the garbage and was “kidnapped” by agents of State Security and a police official and taken to the police station.

“Now at 5:30, Major Alejandro interrogated me to tell me that my movement was limited, that I wasn’t to leave my house today, that they’re not going to allow the protest, that there won’t be rebelliousness of any kind, and that whoever protests today will be detained even for “propagation of the epidemic,” he said.

He says he was “escorted” to his home and they warned him that he could be criminally prosecuted “under the Law in Time of Emergency and War”.

The journalist of the digital magazine El Estornudo, Abraham Jiménez Enoa, also said that he is under “house arrest.”

“Several State Security agents dressed in civilian clothing and a patrol car with four officers were stationed on the ground floor of my house to prevent me from going out to cover the march protesting the death of Hansel Hernández,” the reporter complained.

The film maker, Carlos Lechuga, wrote this morning: “I woke up smoking an exquisite cigar so that the smoke would keep away the fat agent they had stationed outside my house.”

The organizers of the protest are asking for justice in the case of Hansel Ernesto Hernández, but also for the activist, Ariel Ruiz Urquiola, who will speak this Thursday at the headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, and for Silverio Portal Contreras, a member of the opposition organization “Cuba Independent and Democratic,” and a prisoner since 2018, for humanitarian reasons due to his health.

Besides the concentration in Havana, the promoters have called on people to come out in every province.

Hernández’s death was discovered last Thursday when his aunt reported the facts on social media. The young man, 27 years old, had an altercation with the police, who went beyond what was necessary, and he was killed by an agent’s gunshot.

According to the official version, published in Tribuna de La Habana three days later, Hernández was caught robbing spare parts from a bus. A patrol tried to intercept him, and he responded by throwing stones, after which the police discharged a weapon.

According to the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH), with headquarters in Madrid, although the official version was adjusted to the facts, there was no proportionality in the police act.

Translated by Regina Anavy

_____________

COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Two Literary Awards Announced for Cuban Authors

Manuel Moreno Fraginals is the Cuban historian who gives his name prize from the INSTAR institute.

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 19 June 2019 — Literature lovers have a double opportunity with the announcement of two new awards for Cuban authors.

The Hannah Arendt  Institute of Artivism (INSTAR), directed by independent artist Tania Bruguera, has announced the first edition of the Manuel Moreno Fraginals award, which will be awarded to a critical essay on the Revolution.

The objective of the award is “to generate written works and public dialogues about this period, which interpolate, answer and present an alternative to the official history.” continue reading

All Cubans over 18 years old and resident of the island can compete for the prize, endowed with 5,000 CUC and the publication the winning submission in eBook format, by submitting a text of at least 250 pages.

The deadline for the submission of the texts, which can be sent as of Tuesday, will be October 17, 2019. The jury, composed of historians Abel Sierra Madero, Lillian Guerra and Rafael Rojas, will announce the winner in February 2020.

On the other hand, Verbum Publishers has also announced a call for submissions for the for the Myths and Legends of Europe Children and Youth Literature Award, directed, in this case to any author, Spanish or Latin American, who submits with a work written in Castilian.

The submissions should be stories of a length between 4 and 7 pages and aimed at readers between 8 and 12 years of age, addressing historical and/or fantasy curiosities inspired by European myths and legends.

Manuscripts can be sent by email to the publisher, beginning Tuesday and ending on 31 July 2019. The decision will be announced in September and the prize consists of the publication of the story in the anthology to be published Verbum Publishers late of 2019.

The publisher will give a copy of the book to each award-winning author at a presentation in November.

______________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Instar Offers Two Residencies to Promote Civic Initiatives in Cuba

The artist Tania Bruguera directs the Hannah Ardent Institute of Artivism. (Youtube)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 30 May 2019 — The Hannah Arendt Institute of Artivism (Instar) is offering two Vita Activa (Active Life) Residencies “to promote civic initiatives with viable solutions in the short or medium term.” Every Cuban resident on the island can apply and novelty and creativity will be rewarded.

Vita Activa is looking for “projects which, using a strong theoretical and investigative base, are implemented in the public sphere,” explains Instar, the institute led by the renowned artist Tania Bruguera. The registration period has been extended until July 1, 2019 and individual or collective projects will be considered.

The jury that will select the winners will privilege those proposals that explore “new management models for the social and cultural development of a community.” The projects selected will be both “transdisciplinary artistic projects” and “innovative projects that start from any other social practice,” says the call for applications. continue reading

“Projects that are already in the process of being implemented and that need support will also be accepted, and priority will be given to those with the prospect to continue beyond the time of residency,” the call states. Projects will be evaluated based on a “sense of social justice, and the mutual trust generated by the project in the community and creativity,” it adds.

Two residences will be awarded and, during the first three months, the residents will have to “develop a research period to explore the potentialities and possible implementation of their proposal.” To achieve this they will have a stipend of 200 CUC per month, in addition to advice and logistical support from Instar.

The residency takes its name from the concept “vita activa,” one of the fundamental approaches of Hannah Arendt’s work “The Human Condition,” which designates three fundamental activities — labor, work and action — which condition and determine in a basic way the existence of man.

The Institute itself uses the term “artivism” to define itself based on the idea of combining art and activism, which results in socially responsible actions. It bears the name of Arendt, the political scientist who “studied totalitarian systems, both in capitalism and in socialism, and its effects on the concept of citizenship,” Bruguera said in an interview.

“In the following six months, the resident must implement the project in the space or community for which it was conceived with a budget of up to 5,000 CUC, depending on the production needs of the project.” The institute will work with the project during its first year and the results will be presented at the Instar headquarters in Havana.

The application for residencies is available on the Institute’s website and can be sent via email or presented in person to Instar headquarters.

The call emphasizes that the funds used for the residencies do not come from “donations from institutions or entities that incite violence, discrimination, demand ideological ties or demand commitments against our principles.”

Instar and Bruguera have been accused by the official press of working “actively to subvert the Cuban constitutional order” and receiving funds from the National Foundation for Democracy (NED).

________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Why Am I Not Going to the XIII Havana Biennial?

The Cuban Artist and “Artivista,” Tania Bruguera. (Twitter)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Tania Bruguera, Havana, 14 April 2019 — Before giving my reasons I want to clarify that I admire the work of the curators of La Bienal de La Habana and I do not consider any of my reasons to be their responsibility. Rather, they are a response to the cultural policies of the Ministry of Culture. I am an artist formed by the Havana Biennial and maybe that’s why what is happening pains me more.

I am not going to the XIII Havana Biennial because I do not understand the incoherence of suspending the Biennial in 2017 to redirect its resources to the reconstruction of Hurricane Irma — which was a position posed as aesthetic-ethical — and now, in 2019 , when a few months ago a tornado devastated several of the poorest and most hard-working areas of Havana, the Ministry of Culture (MINCULT) has decided that it is more important to spend a good part of its budget in promoting and using the Havana Biennial to clean up its international image in the face of the campaign against Decree-law 349.

Because MINCULT does not practice institutional transparency. When the Deputy Minister of Culture was asked openly through Twitter for the budget of this year’s Bienniel, the response was a string of personal accusations without, of course, answering the question. continue reading

When I explained that this was an internationally established practice, his response was silence. That silence continues even when the Ministry of Culture and promotional material support to the project of an artist is determined based not on artistic quality but on their loyalty to the government and the use it can make of that artist to enhance the international image of the country.

Because the objective of this Biennial is not to promote Cuban artists (it affects each one according to their possibilities), but that everyone understands that Decree-Law 349 will be applied only to those who are independent and ask uncomfortable questions.

Because it could not attend a party to share my impressions about the artistic merits of a work of the XIII Biennial of Havana while I know that Congolese medical students are being repressed, abused and confronted at gunpoint by Cuban police in the same streets that we walk to go to see an exhibition, and nobody is doing anything to avoid this happening or to show solidarity with the students.

I could not take a selfie among friends while I know that, at that moment, there are artists who are prisoners and constantly harassed because they are considered ’uncomfortable’ and do not fit into the official narrative of the Biennial created by MINCULT.

I can not continue to justify with the official euphemism “bad work” when in reality it means “I’m not getting involved in this because it will bring me problems.” I can not be an accomplice, because I already know with irrefutable evidence that State Security gives orders to MINCULT.

Because the double standards of those who support the protests in the Whitney Museum (because a member of their council is ethically unacceptable), or in the Guggenheim (so as not to accept ethically unacceptable money), are the same people who in Cuba justify ethically unacceptable attitudes and do it with tremendous joy; this is incomprehensible to me.

Nobody is innocent anymore, the person who is blind is so because he took out his own eyes so as not to see. Who cares about the injustices that exist in Cuba? Not those who visit The Biennial, Cuba is not their problem, they are passing through and have exchanged for a party and sunny skies their power to pressure the Cuban government to get Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and the rappers Pupi and Maykel Osorbo out of jail and to stop harassing Amaury Pacheco, his wife Iris Ruiz and their children.

Injustice can not be a rumor circulating among mojitos and solidarity in places like Cuba is not a ’pretty slogan,’ it is not Venice nor is it Kassel; Cuba is a country that represses freedom of expression (especially when there is no Biennial).

Because my struggle to achieve freedom of expression in Cuba, my defense of cultural rights, to achieve the end of political hatred among Cubans and to defend the right to demonstrate in the streets is not limited to an event but is a life mission.

This is the biennial where no one is innocent anymore, this is the biennial where everyone must act according to their conscience. My conscience does not let me be part of the spectacular process of whitewashing which Mincult has made of the Havana Biennial.

_____________________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

"The Fight Against Decree 349 Will Continue," Insists Amaury Pacheco After Being Released

Group of artists who promote the campaign against Decree 349. (Courtesy)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 5 December 2018 — On Wednesday, around eight-thirty in the evening, Yanelys Núñez and Luis Manuel Otero were released, according to what they told 14ymedio when they left the Vivac de Calabazar Detention Center after protesting Decree 349.

“First we were in the eleventh unit of the San Miguel de Padrón police station, there we spent Monday night and on Tuesday they took us to Vivac (the State Security detention center), and when we arrived they did not want to accept us because Luis was on-strike and they returned us to the unit but in the night they accepted us (at Vivac) and we stayed there until they let us go. During the interrogations they told us that if we protested again in front of the Ministry of Culture they would accuse us of illegal association and demonstrating without permission.”

Núñez explained that Luis Manuel Otero, after leaving prison after more than 48 hours on hunger and thirst strike, had taken a soda. continue reading

On the other hand, on the night of Tuesday, the artists Amaury Pacheco and the producer Michel Matos were released, according to Pacheco himself, speaking to14ymedio after being released

Both were detained in the midst of a repressive wave by State Security against a peaceful sit-in in front of the Ministry of Culture (Mincuult) headquarters as a part of the campaign against Decree 349. Pacheco explained that his hunger strike will be maintained “as long as any artist is in prison” and he will return this morning to the Ministry of Culture if Yanelys Núñez and Luis Manuel Otero are not released during the night.

Pacheco said that when he arrived at the Ministry of Culture on November 3, both he and Matos were detained and that they spent most of their time in the police unit of the municipality of Regla. “Michel was taken first to Guanabacoa but then they brought him to the same jail where I was in Regla, there they interrogated us and told me that if I went back to Mincult I would be imprisoned for one to three years,” he said.

This newspaper was also able to speak with artist Tania Bruguera after she was released on Tuesday night after her third arrest, including her first arrest at the beginning of the protest. “They held me from nine in the morning until nine at night but they did not take me to a unit, they left me inside the car until three thirty in the afternoon at La Puntilla and then they took me to a house that is beyond Lenin Park, by way of Calvario,” explained the artist.

She says that at every moment the agents told her they would take her home but when she expressed her desire to return to the Ministry of Culture, that proposal was postponed until finally at nine o’clock in the evening they left her at the door of her house. During the detention in the house where the artist was taken, they offered her water and food, even though she had told her captors that she was on a hunger and thirst strike.

“They took me to a room with a table covered with food, I told them I was not going to eat, then they gave me a cold water bottle but I told him to keep it and later they also offered me ice cream but I also refused,” says the renowned artist.

“You know how I react when someone is imprisoned because it happened in 2014, I will talk with no problems when no one is being held prisoner,” Bruguera told the agent.

The musician Sandor Pérez Pita, from the reggae group Estudiantes sin Semilla (Students without Seed), was also released in the afternoon.

The artist Amaury Pacheco had affirmed that he maintained his hunger and thirst strike until they released the rest of the artists and that “the fight against Decree 349 continues.” In a video posted on his social networks he said this entire battle is being fought “for art, for freedom of expression.”

In conversation with 14ymedio, Tania Bruguera said that the intention was to return on Thursday to the Ministry of Culture to demand again the release of Yanelys Núñez Leyva and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara to establish a dialogue with the institution and to ask for a response.

Artists from several countries have mobilized since Tuesday in favor of the release of the group of artists who oppose Decree 349. The director of the Tate Modern gallery in London, Frances Morris, expressed on Twitter that these arrests clearly illustrate the threats many artists around the world are facing.

Also this Wednesday afternoon a public session was held in the Turbine Hall to say “No to Decree 349” and provide support to detainees through an open microphone to those who wish to participate.

The Bureau of Human Rights, Democracy and Labor of the US State Department wrote on its Twitter account that “the Government of Cuba continues to criminalize freedom of expression while besieging artists and journalists to discourage protests against Decree 349.”

Meanwhile, Silvio Rodríguez wrote a comment on the blog Segunda Cita that “Decree 349 may have very good intentions but I’m sure it would be better if it were discussed with the artists.” He added that “it was something cooked up among the few” and that in his opinion “a disposition of this scopes must have a more democratic origin, and a purpose.”

“Perhaps there should be a moratorium on the decree, until an acceptable modification is discussed and resolved, and I do not know whether I will be able to work abroad as I have been doing, starting next year. I began to work on my own in the face of the very inefficient state contracting and coordination mechanisms,” the troubadour wrote.

Deborah Bruguera, Tania’s sister, wrote: “While on the phone with Tania Bruguera, Lt. Col. Kenia took her in a car, right at the corner of the MINCULT.” The artist sent a public statement “of the artists who have called for the sit-in at the Ministry of Culture of Cuba,” that her sister shared on social networks.

We reproduce the text in its entirety:

We have decided to make a call to sit peacefully and respectfully to camp, meditate, read poetry, dance, paint or perform any artistic activity in front of the Ministry of Culture because:

1: The artists of all the demonstrations, have carried them out in an organized way and through institutional channels to request the repeal of Decree 349 and its subsequent drafting with the assistance of the artists.

2: Even though these groups have met with leaders of the Ministry of Culture, the promises that they have made to respond have not been met and, failing that, a technical article was published in the Granma newspaper on November 30, justifying the validity of the current Decree 349, along with a bombardment on national television of programs with explanations in favor of 349 in its current format. This seems indicative to us that Decree 349 will not be repealed because this seems to be an action with the purpose of setting the population against our demands.

3: [The government] has commented that regulations and corrective rules will be made for the implementation of Decree 349. This seems insufficient because, given that the Decree has serious errors of representation and puts artists in a state of vulnerability, by criminalizing them and their works, we do not believe that it is appropriate to proceed with how to implement the Decree, if not the Decree itself.

4: December 7th is approaching, the date on which Decree Law 349 will become effective. We are asking for a meeting open to all with the Minister of Culture to inform us what has been the result of the meetings held with the artists and what will happen with Decree 349.

We want to receive from the Ministry of Culture the same respect towards us that we have had towards them. We will continue presenting ourselves to the Ministry of Culture to ask for our right to a response and open meeting with all the artists.

____________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Tania Bruguera Sues Official Media for Defamation

Tania Bruguera during her “performance” during the XII Bienniel of Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, December 18, 2018 — The artist Tania Bruguera made public this Tuesday a text in which she reports on a lawsuit she has brought against various official press outlets and against some of their most visible spokespersons.

“Tired of suffering defamation by the country’s official press outlets like Granma and Razones de Cuba (“Cuba’s Reasons,” apro-government blog) and of websites backed by the Ministry of Culture, like La Jiribilla, I have decided to bring a lawsuit against the actions of all legal and natural persons who have affected me and my family psychologically, professionally, and socially,” said Bruguera in a statement accompanying the lawsuit brought on December 11.

The artist told 14ymedio that she filed the penal lawsuit at the Old Havana municipal police station against the citizens who have signed any of the texts of those publications as is the case of Arthur González; Antonio Rodríguez Salvador; the director of the website Cubadebate, Randy Alonso Falcón; the director of La Jiribilla, Anneris Ivette Leyva; and the director of the newspaper Granma, Yailín Orta Rivera. continue reading

Bruguera claimed in her text that the campaign of defamation against her has not taken place only in media outlets, but also in executive meetings of the Ministry of Culture and of the Ministry of the Interior, of the directors of national museums and other leaders and cultural agents of the Government, with young artists, students, curators, and creators, with the objective of discrediting her.

The artist told this newspaper that after making the complaint she delivered copies of all the documentation of the legal action to the Attorney General of the Republic and the public services office of the Council of State. She also reported that in the public services office of the National Revolutionary Police they confirmed to her that the case was registered in the “national system” of complaints.

“They didn’t tell me anything about the period of time to receive a response but I asked a lawyer and she told me that it must be within 30 days,” she detailes. “What I am asking for is not economic compensation, but rather the retraction in the same media outlets where the articles originally appeared, and that they put an explanatory note on those that are on the internet,” clarified Bruguera in the text.

The artist told 14ymedio that she consulted with various lawyers on the writing of the text and that they told her that it is very possible that there are no precedents of a similar legal action to this one and that it would be the first of its kind in Cuba. “So then let it be the first of many and let it mean that, for next person who makes them uncomfortable by saying or doing what they think, the officials reflect on it better,” before defaming that person publicly, she added in her statement.

After this action Bruguera believes that other artists and citizens may be able to use the legal structures that exist in the Government for their protection against defamation.

According to the current penal code, defamation “requires the complaint of the offended party” and the crime takes place when a person, in front of a third party, “imputes to another a conduct, an act, or a characteristic against their honor, that may damage their social reputation, lower them in public opinion, or put them at risk of losing the confidence required to carry out their charge, profession, or social function.” It is sanctioned with “deprivation of liberty for three months to a year or a fine of 100 to 300 ’shares’* or both.”

The Government’s official media outlets, equally in printed form, digital, or telivision, frequently accuse leaders of the opposition, artists, journalists, and independent members of civil society of being “salaried employees of imperialism.”

“The Cuban Government cannot keep using the laws as they please, nor only to protect those who work for their political ends. The Government cannot be exempt from responsibility,” she said. Tania Bruguera supports the campaign against Decree 349 that a group of artists initiatated after it appeared published in the Official Gazette on July 10, along with a package of measures directed at limiting the work of private businesses.

The first week of this month the artist was detained in Havana along with other independent art figures, and advocates of the campaign, like Luis Manuel Otero, Yanelys Núñez, Michel Matos, and Amaury Pacheco. The arrest occurred after Bruguera, on December 7, participated in a “peaceful sit-in” in front of the Ministry of Culture in Havana to demand the repeal of Decree 349. That day she was released after some hours but later, on two other occasions when she attempted to reach the scene of the protest, she was arrested by State Security officials.

Bruguera believes that it is time to be in one’s country when it is going through a moment that is “crucial for freedom of expression in Cuba and also in the world.” The artist recently declined an invitation to participate in the Bienniel of Kochi, in India. “Although, in the circumstances in which we live in Cuba today, they have made us feel that asking for your rights is a useless act, all of us as citizens must be listened to, our rights to be compensated, and to receive a response when defamed, as is anticipated in Article 63 of the current Constitution of the Republic,” said Bruguera. In her statement she expressed: “A nation only exists when the rights of its citizens are respected.”

*Translator’s note: The Cuban penal code establishes fines in terms of a number of “shares.” This is done so that, instead of having to amend every fine established in the code, the amounts can be changed in all instances in the code simply by amending the value of one “share.” 

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

___________________________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Cuban Government Puts the Brakes on Full Implementation of Decree 349, Proposing it be Gradual

Deputy Minister Fernando Rojas said that those who oppose the Decree want to present it as “an act of censorship” (EFE / Archivo)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 8 December 2018 — The Cuban government has decided to stop the full implementation of Decree 349, a few days after it also backed off on fully implementing a package of measures to control the private sector. On Cuban TV’s Roundtable program this Friday, Minister of Culture Alpidio Alonso, announced that the unpopular Decree 349 will only be applied in a “consensus” and “gradual” manner.

Alonso blamed the controversy generated by the decree, which would regulate artistic expression, to problems of interpretation and defended the need to put an end to “vulgarity, bad taste, intrusion and mediocrity.” However, he acknowledged that the Decree, which went into effect on December 7, still does not regulate “certain areas of art promotion and cultural services that currently have no legal standing.”

The minister responded to the flood of criticism that Decree 349 has provoked, but avoided naming the artists who have staged numerous protests outside the Ministry of Culture, such as Tania Bruguera and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, or others who have expressed their discontent in social networks, including the well-known actor Luis Alberto García. continue reading

None of the voices that have opposed the regulation were present on the television program, which featured Fernando Rojas, Vice Minister of Culture; Rafael González Muñoz, president of the Hermanos Saíz Association; and Lesbia Vent-Dumois, president of the Association of Plastic Artists of the government-run Cuban Writers and Artists Union (UNEAC), who argued in favor of implementing the measure.

Rojas said that “the enemies of the Revolution want to present Decree 349 as an act of censorship” and  Rafael González Muñoz mentioned the criticisms “published in the blog Segunda Cita,” but without mentioning its author, the troubadour Silvio Rodríguez, a figure strongly allied to the official ideology who, in recent months, has been launching criticisms of the management of Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel.

Decree 349 has caused an earthquake in the island’s artistic community, where independent and alternative spaces have grown in recent years. In a country where there is an increasing number of recording studios in private homes, private premises that hire musicians or comedians directly, and producers of audiovisuals outside government institutions, the regulations constitute a return to the times of greater centralism.

The measure establishes that atists must be linked to cultural entities under government control and, only then, can they obtain the necessary permits to present their work in spaces open to the public, such as private galleries. To ensure that it is applied, the Ministry of Culture enlists a group of inspectors who can close an exhibition or end a concert if they consider that it is not part of the cultural policy of the Revolution.

The artists see in these powers a political underpinning, disguised as a fight against vulgarity, and one that could start a witch hunt against uncomfortable and creative works that openly criticize the ruling party.

Article 2.1 of the Decree lists among the offenses that will be penalized that of providing “artistic services without being authorized to perform artistic work in a position or artistic occupation.” A point that Rojas nuanced this Friday, when he stressed that it is not a battle against amateur artists and that it is not mandatory to stay in a state institution.

During the program, there were interviews with the troubadour Heidi Igualada, with Digna Guerra, director of the National Choir of Cuba, and with the actor Fernando Hechavarría, but none of them criticized the Decree. Fernando Medrano, a choreographer from Camagüey, added that the regulations were conceived to confront “uncouthness, vulgarity and bad taste.”

All the guests of the program alluded to misunderstandings and misrepresentations that had fomented the dissatisfaction around the regulation, and Lesbia Vent-Dumois detailed that with the Decree “knowing how to read is knowing how to interpret,” which meant that “they could not read.” The official criticized the critics of the measure as “ignorant” and “ill informed.”

For his part, the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, one of the most well-known faces against the regulations, believes that Friday’s official statements are intended to “dampen the commotion raised by the campaign against the Decree among artists.” It is a strategy “to divide the campaign, but the campaign will continue.”

“From the legal point of view, what matters is the Decree and not what a minister who can be dismissed tomorrow says,” the artist said. “Once again legality in this country is ignored,” and he lamented that several artists “were manipulated” in the interviews that were broadcast on the Roundtable program.

Decree 349 details up to 19 “contraventions” or violations of the law, including organizing concerts, recitals or exhibitions without the authorization of the Government or divulging audiovisual or culturalcontent that is violent, pornographic, discriminatory or offensive towards national symbols.

 _________________________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Tania Bruguera Brings Viewers to Tears With Her Work on Immigration in the Tate Modern

The exhibition takes place in the Turbinas room of the Museum of Contemporary Art in London. (Tate Modern)

14ymedio biggerEFE via 14ymedio, London, 1 October 2018 — Tania Bruguera brings her viewers to tears with her work about the victims of the crisis of immigration that opened this Monday at the Tate Modern in London. it will be on until 24 February 2019. The work of the artist, who lives between Havana and New York, has many surprising elements and tries to make people think about the migratory crisis through several “furtive interventions” that the visitor finds when walking through the Turbinas room of the contemporary art museum.

The title of the work is the number of immigrants who traveled from one country to another in the last year, plus those who have died to date, a changing figure that will not be displayed on the event posters, but will be stamped daily on the wrists of the visitors to the gallery. Today’s number was 10,142,926.

Other “actions” aimed at provoking reflection include a room in which visitors are brought to tears when they come into contact with an organic compound that irritates the eyes, with which the artist wants to force “an emotional response.” continue reading

Bruguera has also arranged the portrait of a Syrian immigrant on the floor of the Turbinas room, which is only activated through the heat generated if several people touch it at the same time.

The artist has involved the activist community of the London neighborhood where the Tate is located for this work, and their names will appear for several months in one of the rooms in the center of London.

The work presented today also has some sound effects, made in collaboration with the artist Steve Goodman or Kode9, which give the visitor a feeling of uneasiness or the sense that something is about to happen.

 __________________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Cuba’s Independent Artists Denounce the "State of Exception" They’ve Faced Since 1959

Yanelys Núñez, Nonardo Perea, Amaury Pacheco, Iris Ruiz, Luis Manuel Otero, Soandry del Río, and Michel Matos in a protest action against Decree 349. (Facebook)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana | 17 September 2018 — The group of independent artists who since July have been carrying out a campaign against Decree 349 reports that “since the triumph of the Revolution, in 1959, there has existed a state of exception when it comes to the freedom of artistic creation and expression” in Cuba and that a considerable number of “creators and cultural projects have flourished from their own will and creative capacity, but then been taken down by the powers and the official institutions that rule national life.”

The text is part of the San Isidro Manifesto, presented this past Wednesday by the group as one more of their actions against the rule that regulates artistic presentations in private spaces and against which they have been mobilizing since July. The document, which is circulating on media, is signed by Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Yanelys Núñez, Amaury Pacheco, Iris Ruiz, Michel Matos, Hamlet Lavastida, Soandry del Río, Verónica Vega, Lía Villares, Yasser Castellanos, and Tania Brugera, among others. continue reading

Its launch took place at the venue of the Museum of Politically Uncomfortable Art (MAPI), in the San Isidro neighborhood of Old Havana, and musicians, poets, writers, audiovisual directors, producters, and plastics artists joined the act.

Yanelys Núñez read the text, which invites “any individual who feels like part of this phenomenon that today we call ‘the independent'” to participate in the campaign aimed at the repeal of Decree 349, and urges a dialogue that will allow the review of cultural policies that the State institutions are attempting to impose.

Later, the attendees made a pilgrimage to the Malecon to ask the patron of Cuba, the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre, for the annulment of the law.

The manifesto mantains that the law “legitimizes the use of judicial action to punish the free creation and determination” that belongs to them as artists and individuals and says that it “stimulates corruption” through the creation of the figure of the supervisor-inspector “taking into account that inspectors are one of the most corrupt sectors of the regulatory apparatus of the State.”

On July 10 the Council of Ministers approved Decree 349, focused on “the violations regarding cultural policy and over the provision of artistic services” which will enter into full force in December.

The artists who defend the repeal of the law believe that this “is destined not only to control and intimidate artists and creators from various branches of the national culture, but also in the private business sector, to impede a natural and organic relationship inside the different spheres of Cuban society.” In addition, they believe that it “threatens with legal warnings, fines, and seizures of equipment or property used as a platform for the creation and dissemination of independent works.”

The decree grants to the “supervisor-inspector,” they emphasize, the authority to suspend immediately any performance or show that he understands to violate the law, having the ability to go to the extreme of canceling the self-employment license to practice work.

“We understand exactly that any nation in the world must regulate its internal activities, receive taxes if those become lucrative, just as they must safeguard internal order and peace,” point out the artists. However, in their view it is “inadmissable to accept the existence of a confusion of laws” that only aims to control the artistic sector and “punish it for its independent expression and action.”

The group of artists believes that the “only logical aim” this law appears to have is to maintain “the ideological primacy in a highly centralized state.”

Some of the artists complain that the official press has tried to distort the intention and origin of the campaign against Decree 349 and clarify that they are only asking institutions to listen to them and that they are not calling for “either neither anarchy nor confrontation.”

However, they maintain that these laws and rules are impossible to comply with because “they don’t adjust to the national reality at the present time” and because they are “abusive, disproportionate, and they violate international norms and agreements.” For this they direct their proclamation “to all men and women of good will” and invite their support.

“We are determined to come together as a group to begin a collection of sociocultural actions like this as calls for international attention to halt the imposition of a complex of laws that insults all Cubans,” they state.

On more than one occasion this group has suffered political repression for trying to carry out public acts to support and defend their campaign against the decree. On August 11 various artists who wanted to participate in a concert at the MAPI venue suffered the repression of police who showed up at the place along with officials from State Security to stop the action. On that day, which ended with the detention of several of the artists, neighbors from the San Isidro neighborhood went out to the street to condemn the conduct of those in uniform.

Translated by: Sheilagh Carey

___________________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Instar Launches First Independent Fund For Audiovisual Creation In Cuba

The artist Tania Bruguera (Youtube)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 11 June 2018 – The Hannah Arendt Institute of Artivism (Instar) has launched the first independent fund for the creation of audiovisuals in Cuba. The call for project proposals has been posted on the project’s online site, created by the artist Tania Bruguera, and is open from June 8 to September 8, 2018.

Instar invites “filmmakers and aspiring filmmakers” from all over the country to participate in the first edition of PM: INSTAR fund for audiovisuals in Cuba, the site announces. Those interested can submit unpublished projects that should be the first short film by the director.

Applications are open in fiction, documentary and new media categories, while the projects must not exceed 30 minutes. The projects selected in each category will receive a cash amount of 5,000 CUC. continue reading

The Fund seeks to “promote the diversity of voices in the independent Cuban audiovisual sector, promote directors, producers and script writers from under-represented communities and their stories.”

Although “the topic is free and uncensored,” the organizers will give “priority to projects about pressing social issues in Cuba today and in the future” and “innovative methods of audiovisual production will be evaluated and, in the case of the documentary, the rigor of the investigation,” will be considered.

Similarly, the evaluation will consider “projects that assume in their budgets fair pay to the work teams and decent filming conditions.” A frequent complaint in the guild of filmmakers in Cuba is the low salaries and the appalling conditions of the state sector.

Those interested in participating should send their projects by email in PDF format to the electronic address: INSTARaudiovisuales@artivismo.org. The subject line must include the name of the project and a pseudonym.

Instar, based in Havana, is a “space for civic literacy on the Island that emerged as a result of the public action #YoTambienExijo,” which Bruguera carried out in 2014.

Initial reactions to the call from Cuban filmmakers on social networks have been positive. “Excited,” wrote producer Marta María Ramírez on her Facebook profile.

One of the petitions launched by the group El Cardumen in its recent statement “Words from Cardumen, declaration of young Cuban filmmakers,” included among its demands that national institutions create a promotion fund for the production of national cinema. However, Bárbara Betancourt Martínez, Director of Cultural Programs at the Ministry of Culture, described the young people’s statement as “anarchic demagoguery” and stated that they were motivated only by the intention to “raise a hubbub.”

The request for the creation of the fund is a common denominator in the minds of Cuban filmmakers and was one of the demands from the assemblies of filmmakers who made up the G-20.

PM was a documentary by Saba Cabrera Infante and Orlando Jiménez, censored in 1961, because for just a few minutes it showed Cubans dancing and drinking in bars.

The image annoyed the government and the censorship of the film gave rise to a sequence of events eventually became “the PM case.” It was in this context that Fidel Castro condemned intellectuals at the beginning of his mandate, and in a major speech declared: “Within the Revolution, everything; against the Revolution, nothing,” which established the rules that define the cultural policy of the Government still today.

_______________________

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.