14ymedio, Havana, 26 December 2023 — After perpetrating numerous acts of censorship against the works of several filmmakers at the beginning of the year, the Ministry of Culture topped it all off last June. The broadcast on Cuban Television of an unauthorized version of the documentary La Habana de Fito (Fito’s Havana), directed by Juan Pin Vilar, unleashed a swell of protests in the guild, which ended with the formation of the Assembly of Cuban Filmmakers (ACC).
The signing, by more than 600 filmmakers, of a letter condemning the actions of the authorities caused the regime to agree to meet “peacefully” with the filmmakers.
However, if on the side of the creators there were renowned figures such as the director Fernándo Pérez, the ministry could not be left behind. Alpidio Alonso and Fernando Rojas, minister and deputy minister of Culture, respectively, in addition to the first deputy minister Inés María Chapman and the head of the ideological department of the Communist Party, Rogelio Polanco, escorted Ramón Samada, then president of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC), to the meeting with the filmmakers.
From the duel between bureaucra