Cuban filmmakers denounce new case of censorship: "Acts of exclusion and institutional abuse continue"

The Assembly of Cuban Filmmakers (ACC) denounced the sanction imposed on the director of the Museum of the Image, Demian Rabilero del Castillo, for programming a series of documentaries by filmmakers who are members of this organization.

One year after its creation, the ACC is once again at the center of controversy and debate between the cultural institutions of the Cuban regime and the creators and workers of the artistic guild who seek to exercise their right to creative freedom and expression.

The punishment of the director of the Bernabé Muñiz Guibernau Museum constitutes "a new act of censorship and exclusion perpetrated by the cultural authorities of our country," denounced the ACC in a statement.

Rabilero del Castillo was removed from his position for "failing to comply with the Constitution" and the regulations that, according to the Cuban totalitarian regime, should govern his work. Due to this "negligence" and citing Article 29.1 of Decree Law No. 13/2020, the manager was dismissed from his duties.

The document with the administrative sanction was shared recently by Rabilero del Castillo himself. Among the reasons given by the authorities of the Ministry of Culture (MINCULT) led by Alpidio Alonso Grau (the minister of the slap) is that the ACC is an "organization not recognized by the Cuban State, which brings together filmmakers living on the island and others who do not live there, but have positions contrary to the Cuban Government."

A year ago, the copyright of another Cuban filmmaker was violated by the same authorities, causing the indignation of almost 700 creators who signed the declaration issued by the Cuban Filmmakers Assembly regarding those events," the ACC recalled, referring to the censorship suffered by filmmaker Juan Pin Vilar and his documentary 'Fito's Havana,' and the subsequent reaction of the guild, which led to the organization's inception.

For the ACC, the coercion exerted on Rabilero del Castillo "is the tip of an iceberg". According to their complaint, "members of our organization have been pressured in different ways".

"Nothing has changed since then; acts of censorship, exclusion, and institutional abuse continue," ACC members stated, reproaching authorities for avoiding "the real underlying problems of Cuban cinema."

In the face of the manifest disregard of the authorities towards the proposals of the ACC, its members declared that their "fight against dogmatism, exclusion, and institutional abuse remains valid".

We reiterate the civic right of our guild to work on matters that concern it and to oppose a cultural policy determined not to recognize the complexity of Cuban reality or our right to reflect it from a critical perspective. At the same time, we express our full solidarity with Demián Rabilero," the ACC concluded.