Unexpected Connections

Moving to Vedado gave us a different perspective on Havana. Before the Revolution this was THE neighborhood, the place where rich Cubans, especially foreigners and the Italian Mafia lived the good life.










You can see it in the amazing mansions, though many are now a bit busted, they're still very spectacular. The high rise apartment buildings have terraces, some a bit off kilter, that afford people living there magnificent views of the ocean. Vedado even has bountiful trees and green grass space where people play soccer, or chill out in the shade, a great place to nap in the park, as Nicole can testify. This neighborhood is also more developed than Habana Vieja and Centro Habana, and is where you can find most of the movie theatres. What was also intriguing about our domestic relocations was meeting our various hosts. To recount a bit, before moving to Vedado, Nicole and I actually stayed in two casa particulars in Habana Vieja.



The first few nights we were in Rafaela & Pepe's home ( the gentleman with the scars mentioned earlier). The rooms were ornate with Greco-Roman (but really African) columns, and the ceilings were huge. The first night we got there after 2am we settled into sleep lulled by the sounds of people playing dominos and chatting, and we were awakened by those same sounds mixed with the sounds of a primary school across the street.

We have learned that people's apartments are often hot so they socialize a lot outside, extending the community beyond their respective homes. That reminds me of growing up in the Bronx, hearing basketball games going into the middle of the night. Because we had not booked the room for a longer reservation we wound up moving a few blocks away to Pepe's son's casa particular. Eugenio is a doctor who is presently practicing medicine in Venezuela, and like his parents he was very nice to us and very protective. His place we learned was also co-managed by other siblings in the family. It's obvious that casa particulars are a great business to get into, especially ones listed in guide books, because while we were at Eugenio's the phone and door bell rang constantly, foreign travelers like us looking for places to stay. He had to turn some away.

During my first trip to Cuba I stayed in a casa particular managed by two women who cared for me dearly because they worried that my lack of Spanish would get me lost, that's how conscientious some hosts can be. While on that trip I had an interesting conversation with an AfroCuban hip hopper who bluntly asked me why I didn't stay with an AfroCuban family. I explained to him that I had wanted to but that I couldn't find a black Cuban family in any of my research. From that conversation that's when I learned how difficult it is for Cubans of African descent to get into the casa particular business, because it often requires a lot of money to repair housing to the standards for foreign travelers, and because Black Cubans' standards of living still have problems. So, on this second trip I was hoping Nicole and I would be able to find an AfroCuban family to stay with for cultural, political, and economic reasons. That didn't happen on this trip as well, and clearly reflects some of the economic inequity that black people in Cuba are still struggling with. More reflections on that later, but either way, staying in casa particulars gave us slightly better perspectives than staying in hotels catering to tourists.

When me moved to Vedado we stayed with Magali and Raul, our third set of hosts. Their place was amazingly surreal, but it was like stepping back into the 1960s. The furniture, the dishes, even the art work and the lamps reflected that period. Nicole and I both agreed that it felt like staying with our respective grandparents, even though Magali and Raul are probably the same age as our parents. As an aside, Magali told us that the artwork behind us in this photo was her wedding present!







We also learned that Magali was a career military woman with an auspicious history of being one of the first women Cuban soldiers to move up in the high ranks. I'm not really down with militarism but I can appreciate how difficult her struggles were in a macho culture. She told Nicole a great story of how she stood beside Fidel Castro, who commended her high scores but who towered over her like a huge building.

So our first night here was in a small room, and since small can mean different things to different people, here's how small it was.





Me being the tv junkie that I am, I was finally glad to get a tv, whatever it's size!






Havana has many faces, like any big city, but it reminds me of home, of living in the Bronx.




Both places are in constant motion...

...and both people live to talk.


When I was a kid when doing errands with my Mother the thing that fascinated me about her was how we'd walk the neighborhood and never get far because she'd stop and talk to people, or people would stop her to talk. That's what is was like during our 2 weeks in Cuba...


...meeting people...




...talking & sharing...


... connecting.


We met so many people while going to and from movies and continuing our search for the people who helped me make Bloodletting.




One of the unexpected connections we made was with Dona Gilda Merces Parns Bussue. While Nicole and I were rushing from one place to another Gilda asked me for directions in Spanish. She was like a lot of Cubans who assumed I was Cuban, and would approach me, expecting me to understand. When I'd tell them I didn't speak Spanish initially they didn't believe me. They'd say I looked like someone in their family, or a friend, or a neighbor. That's what happened with Gilda, except that she spoke English with us when she realized.

Gilda is a gentle, graceful, soft spoken woman who speaks English with a Caribbean accent. She told us that she was on her way to meet relatives she had never met before, and that she hadn't spoken English in awhile. My curiosity was piqued. I smelled a story. As Nicole and I walked with Gilda she explained that her father was an AfroCarribean immigrant from one of the islands. He came to Cuba, I believe she said in the early 1900s, because he found work here. He stayed and had a family but he never spoke Spanish and was shy. The relatives she was meeting today were from his home island.



When we told Gilda a little bit about ourselves, and about the documentary, how part of it includes stories about my mother and my brother, she shared with us her reflections on the Unites States. She said that in 1959, after the Revolution, she spent a few months in the U.S. but decided to return to Cuba because she said, "they treat black people terrible there." We exchanged contact information then she invited us to her home, which she said was modest but open to us. She said something like, "I don't have much. It's modest, but what I have is yours." I was touched. We kissed and hugged and went our separate ways, Gilda off to meet long lost relatives, and feeling more confident with her English; me and Nicole off to the festival, both feeling grateful to have made this connection.




Under another shady tree in a small park we met Consuelo Beyuer Roque, and her family, three generations of women, her daughter and her nieta, her granddaughter. Consuelo told us how she struggled and had nothing, that her shoes were even bad. Clearly they were a poor family. Coming from one myself, I was touched by their adversities. It also made me realize that as poor as I am in the United States I am more fortunate than Consuelo and her family.



On my first trip all of the delegates I traveled with brought supplies to give to people, the kinds of things we take for granted, bandages, tooth paste, sanitary napkins, aspirin. This second trip Nicole and I agreed to do the same, and we got a bunch of things to bring. A day before leaving for the trip my Mother wanted to do the same. So she and I went to the .99 Cent Store on Sunset Boulevard, and with a small budget, we got things for people. Before cashing everything out I saw a pair of magnifying reading glasses, and a thought popped into my head that I should get them. I did.

During our conversation with Consuelo, she told us that she couldn't read things because she said she didn't have glasses. Immediately Nicole and I worked out an agreed time to reconnect with Consuelo, to give her a care package along with the reading glasses. When we went our own ways I cried. Though I'm not unfamiliar with poverty it was sad to see a family so poor. I lived in the projects and couldn't afford lots of things, but poverty, whatever its form, is still sad. I never want to get used to it, or to get numb to the pain of poverty.

Wiping my eyes, trying not to get lost in the sadness, we bumped into a tall lean AfroCuban man with locks, pushing a cart. He and I nodded, an obvious mutually respectful connection because of our shared African ancestry, and because of our African locks, what many call dredlocks. Then he introduced himself as "The Fruitman" and asked me if I was a Rastafarian.




I've been asked that question many times, whether I'm a Rastafarian. By definition it means: "Rasta, or the Rastafari movement of Jah people, is a religious movement that reveres Haile Selassie I, the former emperor of Ethiopia, as King of Kings, Lord of Lords and the Lion of Judah. The name Rastafari comes from Ras Tafari, the pre-coronation name of Haile Selassie I, who Rastas of many mansions say is the earthly aspect of Jah (short for Jehova or the Rastafari name for God) and part of the Holy Trinity." When I asked The Fruitman if there were Cuban Rastafarians he told me that there was a prominent community. It was exciting to know.



From my experiences most Rastas are deeply intellectual and spiritual; they're kind and conscientious; they're usually always vegetarian and environmentally conscious, and they exude a love of life, a love of liberation and justice, and a strong sense of global community. The Fruitman was like this. He showed us photos of his family with international friends. He offered us Cuban ron, and invited me and Nicole into his house, where he introduced us to his wife and adorable daughters. Then he did the ultimate rasta thing: he pulled out a boom banging sound system, and sang us Cuban reggae karaoke, blasting the music so loud that a spontaneous party broke out in the streets in front of his house. He was a star and knew it. We all danced to reggae, he invited us to a rastafarian wedding, we exchanged contact information, and Nicole and I were off again into the streets of Havana. The Fruitman gave me this drawing from right off his wall and wished us well, restoring my sense of life. Big up to the Cuban Rastas and to Rastafarianism everywhere!

Searching For Movies & People

Hotel Nacional is impressive as you enter its tiled lobby, walk by uniformed hotel workers opening doors for you, stroll through its outdoor gardens with pheasants chilling on the grass, and view the ocean from its cliff top park overlooking the Malecon.





The Hotel was not only the command center for festival coordinators, but it was also the hub for the filmmakers, where they drank mojitos and cubre libres, smoking, chatting, being filmmakers. It was fly, meaning it was cool. It was also like any other film festival where you could tell which projects had money, and financial backing just by the posters, and which ones didn't have any posters at all, and therefore no money. Here's a hint: if you stare long enough, and squint, then magnify the photo of the bullentin board above you'll see our poster for Bloodletting. It's tiny yet creative, and most definitely symbolizes our placement in the festival -- a dark horse. Normally, I dislike the unconscious use of racist, and or biased language that equate words referring to "black" or "dark" with bad and negatives values, but in this case, I think the word "Dark Horse" is positive and appropriate since the definition is that "a dark horse is a bit of a mystery."

Anyway, it was a great festival, the people were nice, not like other festivals where egos abound. Here, everyone shared the crumbs, like pieces of tape to put up their advertisement. Nicole and I shuttled between checking email in the business office, changing money into Cuban Convertibles, checking screening schedules, reading film synopses in the catalogue, and using pay phones to search for people I came back to reconnect with, people who volunteered to help with the doc who I'd met during my first trip to Cuba, but who I had lost contact with over the years it took to complete the project. I thought looking for those people would be easy, especially since a bunch of them were union workers, one of them was a doctor, and another a nurse, both long time healthcare workers. It wasn't.

We began our search in Centro Habana by visiting the CTC, the Confederation of Cuban Workers, the union organization that co-sponsored my first trip with the U.S. Healthcare & Trade Union Committee. While waiting to meet with the Director of International Relations, I was nervous about explaining why it had taken me so many years to finish the documentary. Nicole assured me that she thought the CTC would understand how me not having money slowed everything down. My concern was that the Cubans who had helped me would think less of me, that they would think that the project didn't matter to me becuase it took so long.



I was also concerned that some would think that I was a CIA plant since on my first trip I had overheard a few Cuban healthcare workers wonder aloud if I was videotaping the tour for the U.S. Military and the CIA. Though the idea of me collaborating with the American government is so far-fetched, it made me realize how much pressure Cubans have been living under given that the American government has for years adopted cruel and inhumane policies designed to hurt and destroy the Cuban government, but really the Cuban people. And what most Americans don't know is that there have been more than 60 attempts to kill Fidel Castro, the money for such clandestine operations coming directly from the United States. A definite misuse of American tax dollars.

When we finally met with the CTC Director of International Relations, Manuel Montero Bistilleiro, he barely remembered our delegation because they sponsor so many international trips and it had been 5 years ago. However, when I pulled out the dvd and showed him pictures from the trip he immediately recognized the faces of the coordinators of the U.S. Healthcare & Trade Union Delegation. I thought to myself, now Nicole and I will be able to reconnect with the people who helped, but it was not to be. Manuel was heading to Mexico for an international workers' conference that very day and couldn't help us in our search. Still, he was gracious and kind in seeing us and said he understood how having no money had prevented me from completing the documentary sooner. I was disappointed that he couldn't just pull out a magic file that listed everyone involved in my first trip, but at least I was able to give the CTC a copy of the documentary and thank them officially. Like most Cubans, he was kind and warm, and wished us well.



We then went to Hospital Nacional Hermanos Ameijeiras, the highest building in Centro Habana, and the place where innovative surgical techniques have been developed. Our next step in the search was to try to find Doctor Elsira Fernandez, a pediatrician who is one of the Cuban healthcare workers interviewed. Dr. Fernandez, who was intelligent and very shy when I interviewed her, explained the Cuban nationalized system. During the interview in her apartment off the Malecon she also told me what her life was like before the revolution, and I felt lucky to have been given a view into her personal life.

She admitted that she was a child of campesinos, poor country people, and that she had no chance of becoming anything other than that of a poor farmer, and a poor farmer's wife. She told me that life for the poor country people less than 50 years ago was miserable, and humiliating, especially since most of them were teased, and called guajiros, counutry bumpkins and hicks. Despite the difficulties she said that she and her sister both dreamed of becoming doctors, even though they knew it would never be, that it was unrealistic, that life in pre-revolutionary Cuba had many guarantees, that it was guaranteed that poor people would always remain poor, and that women would always remain uneducated and subject to sexism. When the revolution came and campesinos were offered scholarships to college Elsira and her sister knew that only one of them would be lucky enough to get educated. This caused them much sadness because they knew that the one sister left uneducated would never be able to fulfill her dream. Conflicted but also hopeful, Elsira and her sister both decided to apply for educational scholarships, and when they learned that both of them had been granted the chance to study medicine they felt as if a miracle had happened. 40 years later Dr. Fernandez and her sister are both doctors. Though her personal story was not included in the documentary I've always remembered it because I was impressed that two poor country girls with potential were given opportunities that changed their lives. Imagine what poor kids in the United States could do if we believed in their potential and stopped cutting scholarship programs.




Anyway, back to our search in the hospital, Nicole and I met with a few hospital workers, but none of them knew Dr. Fernandez, and there was no magic file with information referring to her. I remembered that she was nearing retirement age and that she was also working in the Public Relations department, but none of those details helped either. Another dead end. As we sat in the hospital lobby, disappointed and sweaty, and with tired feet, I wondered if I'd be able to reconnect with anyone.







The next person I was desperate to connect with was an AfroCuban nurse we interviewed, Sonia Ruiz Valdez, who worked in a Senior Citizen's Center in Centro Habana. But between looking for her, trying to schedule a trip to visit a Cuban filmmaker I connected with via the internet, and schlepping from our casa particular in Old Havana to Vedado, where the nucleus of the festival was, Nicole and I were exhausted. The photo of her napping in a park is real. She was so tired we had to sit there for at least a half hour, where she snoozed and rested, and where I watched some Cuban Jews having an event at the Casa de Amistad, the House of Friendship. Somewhere between her nap and my frustration we decided we should move closer to the festival. We had no idea it would become our domestic pattern, to continue moving from casa particular to casa particular. So, without that foreknowledge, we packed up our things, and made the move across town to Vedado.

From Our POV: The 27th Film Festival

Diggin' the hot weather and the sights and sounds of Habana Vieja (Old Havana) we found out quickly that we were far from the center of the film festival. There are about 200 cinemas in Havana, most showing several screenings daily. Hundreds of movies are shown during the festival, and even in other provinces throughout the island.



The center of the film festival activities is held at the Hotel Nacional, in Centro Habana. Since Nicole and I were staying in Old Havana we had to trek from our casa particular to Centro Habana to check in and register. As foreigners we underestimated how long it would take to get to places. So, we walked, and walked, and walked, not something we Angelinos get a chance to do often, always stuck in our cars. At least we saw lots of things and met lots of people so friendly to us.








Ignoring our blistered feet, potholed streets, and traffic everywhere, we passed beautiful parks and old stone churches; we saw lots of guaguas drive by, Soviet tracker trailer trucks acting as buses for the people. These behemoths are usually packed from head to toe with Cubans day and night, people pushing in beyond usual comfort levels because the next bus might never come. What was difficult for me was breathing in billows of black smoke and exhaust coming from these industrial buses as well as cars, taxis, and even coco taxis, also known as huevolitos (little eggs).




we also passed the Capitolio Nacional, which is similar to the U.S. Capitol but richer in details. It took 5000 workers 3 years to build this sucker, and mostly everyone told us interesting information about the Capitolio. It used to be where the Cuban Congress met but now it's where the Cuban Academy of Sciences, and the National Library of Science and Technology is located. Seems like the U.S. and Cuba have some things in common.



Once we checked in, got our badges, and this year's catalogue, which was very costly ($10), we learned first hand that the festival is well known for mishaps, even oversights that everyone shrugs off saying, "Aye, this is Cuba!" Despite not knowing where and when our doc was going to be screened, and having a hard time finding out such informationfrom anyone, Nicole and I loved all the hustle and bustle, all the filmmakers from all over Latin America, Europe, even Asia. Between my poor Spanish and being one of very few black women filmmakers in this year's festival I was still in awe of it all. And again everyone from the festival coordinators to the taxi drivers made us feel at home and treated us warmly. The Cubans are certainly not like what we are led to believe. They have a strong sense of community and family that includes people like me and Nicole.







These are our mug shots taken for our badges that allowed us to get into any movie screened anywhere in the festival. I loved that, especially since it let us go ahead of lines of people waiting to get in, and the lines were always long, like around the block long. Screenings start as early as 10AM and run as late as 11:30PM, meaning that fliks started at almost midnight and people are still out waiting in line to get in. They are truly film lovers.





Movie tickets are priced at about 2 Cuban pesos, which is intentionally made to be cheap so most Cubans can afford it. We found that most couldn't afford to buy the catalogue, so where ever we were our book became the people's book. With hundreds of movies to select having access to the synposes is essential.






During our quest to see movies, and to find out about our screening, which involved lots more walking everywhere, we came across an art display between the Malecon and Hotel Nacional. The artwork represents this year's festival and was viscerally enlightening and visually shocking. Walking up on it, Nicole and I were stunned by the obvious political content and thought people back home would love to see it. Let us know what you think of it.





Most Cubans, whatever their educational level, are film lovers, and also very politically conscious. There is no monolithic perspective on films and politics, but the commonality that Cubans share is their intellect, their great conversational skills, and their love of film critique.