The Cuban State Institute of Cinematographic Arts and Industry (ICAIC) has canceled the exhibition of several foreign animated films whose restoration has been carried out by director Miguel Coyulain open retaliation for the independent filmmaker’s release on June 23 of audio excerpts of the gathering of Cuban filmmakers, the recording of which officials present had forbidden.
A complaint from the director of well-known contemporary Cuban cinema films such as Memories of Development (2010), Nadie (2017) and Corazón Azul (2020), all of which are censored on the island, states: regretted that the ban is now “not even directed against my work anymore. I did this work for the love of art.”But as always, it’s the people who get screwed.
Coyula told DIARIO DE CUBA that “the screenings would be held at the Acapulco Cinema,” but the films were removed from the summer program “because I worked on them.” The height of ridiculousness!”
The canceled feature films are cult classics of international animation that were released in Cuba in the 1980sand which are very popular with many moviegoers on the island. These are the Japanese animes “The Firebird”, “Voltus V”, “Yaltus”, “Technopolice in Action” and “Cyborg 009”, as well as “The Last Unicorn”, an American-Japanese co-production.
Coyula’s work consisted of acquiring re-releases of these films abroad and then remastering them in high definition and dubbing the soundtracks with the voices dubbed by prominent Cuban actors. Paradoxically, these soundtracks were produced by the ICAIC and directed by important directors of institutional cinema.including Fernando Pérez and Manuel Pérez.
The film program was scheduled for next Sunday, July 16, at the cinema in the capital, Acapulco, the day that Cuba celebrates Children’s Day, which traditionally includes special activities for children in state institutions.
According to the announcement of the project “Childhood? Present!”, which promotes these film cycles in Cuban cinemas, The only part of the show that hasn’t been canceled is the Japanese animated production Counterfeiters’ Castle.another filmmaker was responsible for restoring it.
“This cycle has been shown every summer since 2018,” when the very popular Voltus V was planned at the Acapulco cinema itself, said Coyula, who explained that over the years and following the restoration work he was doing in his spare time, the group from The stored films were an asset.
So that The ICAIC’s premature decision can only be interpreted as revenge against the independent filmmaker.
The Cuban cultural authorities have increasingly extended their censorship measures to the deletion of authors of inconvenient works. Coyula’s cinema has not been shown publicly in Cuba for almost a decade, but at the last International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana, Carlos Lechuga’s Vicenta B was also rejected by the ICAIC as a punishment for its director.
A campaign to smear Juan “Pin” Vilar, the director of the documentary La Habana de Fito, also spread among spokesmen for the Cuban regime after it was shown on national television last June without the director’s consent.
This provoked the reaction of Cuban audiovisual filmmakers, who organized themselves in the Filmmakers’ Assembly and demanded explanations from the authorities, while at the same time demanding an end to censorship.