Cuban visual artist Ian Padrón shared an emotional message dedicated to his father, the legendary cartoonist and film director Juan Padrón, who this Friday marks three years since his death.
"It's been three years. I hope one day to return to Cuba and pay you the family tribute you deserve. I love you, dad. I miss you, buddy," Ian expressed on his wall.Facebook.
Ian has been living in the United States for years, where he hosts and directs the interview and debate programRight to Reply, which is broadcast on the Internet, and which gives voices to personalities critical of the regime.
In December 2021, he debated in that space with aCuban who demanded on social networks "not to tarnish his father's work".
Padrón invited Elier Fernández Guerra, who sent him a public letter in which he told him that the character of Elpidio Valdés "does not belong to you, but is, or should be, the intangible heritage of Cuba and the Cubans because of what it represents for we".
Fernández Guerra's letter was made regarding the program that Padrón made with the graphic designerAlex Bandrich to reject the use of a drawing by Elpidio Valdés in a text from the official portalReasons for Cuba, in which the Cuban filmmaker was called a "complacent propagandist" for people "financed by Washington" who attack the island's government.
In the public letter to Padrón, Fernández Guerra assured him that he was not like his father, who did "honor his last name" and "even today he is, and will be, a model for all of us who grew up with his work."
"Please, I ask you not to discredit your father's work, because it would be very crude to put the voice of Media Cara to the character of Elpidio Valdés, we would all realize it, it would be very obvious, and we Cubans are not stupid," he added.
In response, Ian told him "that he should first clean his mouth to talk about his father," and added that Juan Padrón's work is rotting in Cuba.
"The master's archives of his work are being lost. The last thing my father tried to do in life, two years ago, was rescue that. And the only thing he and my family received was the disdain of Cuban institutions , who are letting all of Juan Padrón's work rot," he stressed.
On one occasion,Ian denounced that his father was one of the creators who suffered censorship of the Cuban government.
"He was also censored and undervalued at some point, like other greats he admired such as Pablo Milanés, Silvio Rodríguez, Pastor Vega or Pedro Luis Ferrer," said the filmmaker.
The creator of Elpidio Valdés suggested to his son what he should do in the face of censorship: continue creating.
"The only real victory I had in the face of incomprehension was to continue creating. I trusted the Cuban public and time; they are the ones who will always have the last word," said Juan Padrón then.
Juan Padrón died on March 24, 2020 at the age of 73, after several days admitted to intensive care for lung disease.
"'The last mambí' battled for 20 days and leaves full of love and tranquility," his son wrote in a moving message, announcing the death.
"We will always remember you as the nicest, most humble and brilliant human being we will ever meet in our lives. Thank you for Elpidio Valdés, for the Vampires in Havana and above all for being such a noble and loving father and husband. See you soon, compay!" Ian concluded then.
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