Sandro Castro, grandson of the dictator Fidel Castro and an influencer with over 164,000 followers on Instagram, posted an animated reel on Tuesday in which he deliberately and maliciously satirized Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, founder of the San Isidro Movement (MSI) and a political prisoner recently exiled to Miami.
The video, lasting one minute and twelve seconds, is part of a series of animated episodes featuring artificial intelligence that Sandro regularly publishes under his alter ego "Cristach," a superhero in a green and gold suit with subliminal messages that would likely earn him a stern reprimand from his grandfather.
The narrative begins with a depiction of the artist painting in the streets of the San Isidro neighborhood in Havana when a horde of zombies bursts in and destroys his work— a direct evocation of the acts of repudiation and the raid suffered by the MSI in November 2020—.
Next, the character appears alone and dejected in a dark cell, but the scene shifts: the prison fills with thousands of paintings, and the artist paints with multiple arms, in an image generated by AI in the style of the goddess Kali, accompanied by the text "4,300 artworks created during five years of imprisonment."
The phrase is a direct mockery of Otero Alcántara's statements, who explained that he was allowed to paint in prison because, in his own words, “I was dying and they didn’t want me dead.”
The climax of the reel arrives when the two superheroes —Cristach and a member of his band— break through the prison roof and fly the artist out of Cuba, hinting at a complicity between LMOA and his "saviors," figures from the elite of Castroism and inheritors of the regime's totalitarian power.
The final scene shows the three characters entering Café Versailles in Miami, where a sudden blackout causes all the artwork to fade away: a metaphor for the extinguishing of Otero Alcántara's talent on U.S. soil.
The video deliberately leverages the controversy sparked by the arrival of Otero Alcántara in Miami on July 19, when his well-maintained appearance drew criticism and suspicion: some went as far as to accuse him of having received preferential treatment in prison or of being a Castro agent.
The Cuban regime itself labeled him a "mercenary" in a propaganda piece released after his deportation.
Otero Alcántara responded that the debate about his appearance or his watch —which he said cost around 30 dollars and was a gift— was "a waste of time" in light of the existence of more than a thousand political prisoners in Cuba.
The boxer Yordenis Ugás came to the defense of the activist, warning that the regime may have deliberately crafted that image to divide the exile community.
This reel fits into a well-documented pattern: just two weeks earlier, on July 13, Sandro Castro posted another animated video turning journalists and exiled influencers like Mario Pentón and Alex Otaola into villains.
Analysts and commentators have repeatedly pointed out the possible involvement of State Security behind his messages, although Sandro himself stated in an interview with CNN Español in March 2026 that he was summoned and questioned by that agency due to his satirical videos.
The reel amassed 28,187 views, 475 likes, and 74 comments in just a few hours, solidifying the reach of a piece that, under the guise of animated satire, sends a message that directly supports the regime's narrative against one of the most internationally recognized Cuban activists.
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