Cuban Cinema, Crisis or Transition? Negotiating a Cultural Tightrope

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.10.1.0053
• Published date: 01 April 2018
• Date: 01 April 2018
• Pages: 53-70
• Author: Guy Baron
• Subject Matter: Cuba,cinema,culture,hegemony,power

IJCS Produced and distributed by Pluto Journals www.plutojournals.com/ijcs/

ACADEMIC ARTICLE

CUBAN CINEMA, CRISIS OR TRANSITION?

NEGOTIATING A CULTURAL TIGHTROPE

Guy Baron

University of Aberystwyth, UK

Abstract

According to García Borrero, although recent events would appear to signal a new start

in Cuban cinema, the transition towards a different type of audiovisual production has

been happening for a while due to a number of factors, not least the use of new digital

technologies that have democratised production and have allowed many young people

to make films away from the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC) when previously the institution

had a very tight rein on both production and distribution. It is this loss of centralised

control of the production process that is at the heart of the institution’s problems, and

this article draws on the work of Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci to illustrate how

hegemony is operating within Cuban cinema production today, ultimately arguing that

what is involved today in Cuban cinema is a struggle for hegemony and a crisis of civil

society.

Keywords: Cuba, cinema, culture, hegemony, power

What matters is that a new way of conceiving the world and man is born and that

this conception is no longer reserved to the great intellectuals, to professional

philosophers, but tends rather to become a popular, mass phenomenon, with a

concretely world-wide character, capable of modifying (even if the result includes

hybrid combinations) popular thought and mummified popular culture.

– Gramsci (1971: 417)

According to García Borrero (2013), although recent events at the Cuban

National Film Institute (ICAIC) would appear to signal a new start in Cuban

cinema, the transition towards a different type of audiovisual production on the

54 ACADEMIC ARTICLE – GUY BARON

InternatIonal Journal of Cuban StudIeS 10.1 SprIng 2018

island has been happening for some years due to a number of factors, not least

the use of new digital technologies that have democratised production and have

allowed many young people to make films away from the ICAIC when previ-

ously the institute, created in the first few months of the Revolution in 1959, had

a very tight rein on both production and distribution. It is this loss of centralised

control of the audiovisual production and distribution process that is at the

heart of the institute’s current problems, and this article draws on the work of

Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci, and his work on cultural hegemony, to

illustrate how power is operating within Cuban cinema production today, ulti-

mately arguing that what is involved in Cuban cinema now is a struggle for

hegemony and a crisis of civil society.

2013 was a sanguine year for Cuba’s film industry. 4 years after the ICAIC’s

fiftieth anniversary in 2009, a year in which the number of films produced

reached its highest level since 1990, Cuban national cinema found itself in a very

difficult period of change and uncertainty about its future. On 4 May 2013, a

number of filmmakers decided to get together to informally discuss the future of

the industry. As Cuban writer and film critic Juan Antonio García Borrero

(2013:16) points out, the filmmakers stated that the ICAIC should no longer be

the sole arbiter and representative of Cuban cinema in a changing world:

We recognise […] the ICAIC as the state governing body of the Cuban film industry;

it was born with the Revolution and its long history is a legacy that belongs to all

filmmakers. At the same time, we believe that the problems and the importance

of Cuban cinema today do not only concern the ICAIC; they also concern other

institutions and groups whether they be governmental or independent that are

involved in its production, without whose help and commitment meaningful and

lasting solutions are not possible. For that reason, the reorganization and

development of the Cuban film industry cannot be done solely within the

framework of this organisation.

This statement reflects the rebellious nature of Cuba’s filmmakers; often

staunch supporters of the Revolution but also critical when necessary. One only

has to consider the many instances of conflict between the state and individual

filmmakers over the last 55 years to see how tensions have always been at the

heart of film production in Cuba. For example, in 1961, the film PM by Saba

Cabrera Infante was banned for being too negative about Cuba at the time; in

1981 Alfredo Guevara lost his job as head of ICAIC over the film Cecilia by

Humberto Solas; in 1991, the institute was nearly disbanded over the produc-

tion of Alicia en el pueblo de Maravillas (Alice in Wondertown) by Daniel Díaz

Torres, a film that was seen as too pessimistic during difficult times; and in