The Seventh Art has marked my life since a young age

I was only seven or eight years old when I discovered the magic of cinema. It happened in the Manganeso neighborhood—where we had no electricity and life was quite monotonous—then part of the San Luis municipality, in the province of Santiago de Cuba. The mobile cinema of ICAIC was an extraordinary event. The children would sit on the ground; the adults occupied small benches and stools, and also the floor. Everyone looking at the white screen set up against a wall of the rustic primary school in the neighborhood.

The film was a western produced in communist Germany. The so-called “indigenous westerns,” where the heroes were the natives and the villains were the military, settlers, and white cowboys. At one point in the movie, something happened that I will never forget: a stampede of cattle ran directly toward the camera. For us, kids who hardly knew anything about cinema, the cattle seemed about to burst out of the screen. Some broke into tears, others ran away, or we clung to the adults, convinced that we would be trampled. When the cattle disappeared from the frame, we understood, amidst astonishment, laughter, and relief, the extraordinary power of that invention called cinema. Unbeknownst to us, that night a passion was born that would accompany me for a lifetime.

Before each screening, there was an unavoidable obligation: the ICAIC News. It was impossible to escape the propaganda of the communist regime. Speeches by Fidel Castro, political mobilizations, news from the Soviet Union and other communist countries, agricultural campaigns, international conflicts narrated always from a Marxist-Leninist perspective and profoundly anti-American. Only after that long ideological introduction did the movie we all anticipated finally begin. The mobile cinema visited our neighborhood very rarely, but when it did, it was a true event. 

Among so many Westerns and films from communist countries, they also played Spanish movies: “La vida sigue igual,” featuring the young Julio Iglesias, was my mother’s favorite, as well as that of the other women in the neighborhood. My favorite from those years was “Vivos o preferiblemente muertos” by Duccio Tessari, starring Giuliano Gemma and Nino Benvenuti in the lead roles. It was a comedic spaghetti Western. After the German communist films, that comedy became an extraordinary work for me.

In the 1980s, my mother began taking my siblings, Ana Belkis and Luis Enrique, to Palma Soriano, located about fifteen kilometers from Manganeso. There, I got to know the Heredia, Liberación, and Palma theaters, which no longer operate as cinemas today and are part of the past, like so many other things in Cuba.

In those cinemas, I saw films that remain etched in my memory. I especially remember "Los Dacios," the famous Romanian-French co-production directed by Sergiu Nicolaescu, one of the first major historical superproductions that left a profound impression on me. I also continued watching westerns from communist Germany, including “Ulsana,” about the Apache chief, and the 1981 American feature film “La presa” or "Southern Comfort," directed by Walter Hill, a survival thriller set in a swampy area of Louisiana.

At the Palma Cinema, we watched “Elpidio Valdés against Dólar and Cañón.” Despite my young age, I wasn't particularly drawn to the character created by Juan Padrón. While many enjoyed the animated films from ICAIC or the numerous Soviet productions that filled Cuban television, my preferences lay elsewhere. I eagerly looked forward to the appearances of Huckleberry Hound, Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny, or Daffy Duck. Although I didn’t yet understand the ideological differences, my childhood tastes were naturally inclined towards Western cinema and animation.

Something similar happened to me with the political propaganda films that the regime constantly screened: "The Man from Maisinicú," "The Brigadista," and many Soviet productions about World War II never piqued my interest. In my home, there was a critical attitude toward the regime, expressed only within the walls of our house out of fear of reprisals. Perhaps that also influenced the way I viewed those films.

During my adolescence, cinema stopped being an occasional pastime and became almost a necessity. I would walk five kilometers to Palmarito de Cauto to see the two movies on Saturday nights, and often, I would stay there until Sunday to enjoy a third and even a fourth film on a friend's old black-and-white Russian television. Afterward, I would walk back in the early hours or the next day. Among many memories from that time, I distinctly recall "Death on the Nile," directed by John Guillermin and based on Agatha Christie's novel.

I especially remember the almost ten-kilometer journey that several teenagers made to see "Game of Death," Bruce Lee's unfinished film, at the cinema in the municipality of Mella. The return trip was unforgettable: all the way back, we threw kicks and punches, convinced that, for a few hours, we were disciples of the legendary martial artist.

Little by little, my cinematic interests began to change and expand. In addition to Hollywood westerns, crime films, and martial arts, I started to appreciate the great historical classics. "Ben-Hur," directed by William Wyler; "Quo Vadis," featuring Robert Taylor and an unforgettable Peter Ustinov as Nero; the version of "Robin Hood" starring Errol Flynn; "Lawrence of Arabia," "Ivanhoe," and so on. All of these reaffirmed my ambition to be the hero of a real epic.

We also saw several American courtroom dramas, adaptations of other novels by Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, films about World War II, and biographies of great warriors, conquerors, political leaders, scientists, and writers.

Once fully integrated into the Cuban pro-democracy opposition, my search took on a new meaning. I began to find films that explained the nature of totalitarian systems and the need to fight for freedom. I discovered "Doctor Zhivago," based on the novel by Boris Pasternak; "Gandhi," directed by Richard Attenborough; "To Kill the Priest," inspired by the assassination of Father Jerzy Popiełuszko in communist Poland; "Ninotchka," featuring Greta Garbo; "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich," about the Soviet labor camps; and "Topaz," by Alfred Hitchcock, set during the missile crisis in Cuba.

Upon my release from prison in 2011, I set out to seek productions from countries that had managed to break free from communism. Works like “The Lives of Others,” “General Nil,” or “Różyczka” not only allowed me to enjoy great pieces of the seventh art, but they also helped me to convince others of the malevolent essence of communism, the necessity of bravely fighting for freedom, and I even used excerpts from those films to identify collaborators of the regime and bring them to confess their work as infiltrated agents within the opposition.

Last Sunday, after more than 30 years without stepping foot in a cinema, I went to one in Miami with my wife and a very dear family friend to see "Oppenheimer" by Christopher Nolan, starring Matt Damon. The gigantic screen, several times larger than any I ever saw in Cuba; the sound quality, the sharpness of the images, the comfort of the theater, and the excellent service reminded me of those old cinemas in Palma Soriano, the improvised showings of mobile cinema, and the long walks of my youth to see a movie.

I then thought about the huge difference between a free country where the film industry continues to innovate and produce the best movies on the planet and another with an economically and institutionally struggling film industry, where most cinemas have disappeared, along with so many other things.

Today I am convinced that cinema, along with literature, has been one of the great teachers of my life. Both have taught me about history, philosophy, politics, psychology, and above all, about the eternal struggle between the defenders of freedom and tyranny. Without them, I would hardly be the person I am. Many of the beliefs that have accompanied me for decades, even in the most difficult moments, were born in front of a screen or a book.

I dream that a free Cuba will once again have great and modern cinemas and an industry capable of producing quality films about our own history; films that rigorously recount the tragedy experienced under totalitarianism, human rights violations, political imprisonment, the resistance of those who never renounced freedom, and the suffering of millions of Cubans.

Because only when a nation knows its history and is able to tell it honestly, through literature, cinema, and other artistic expressions, can it build a future where the tragedy that marked several generations of Cubans never repeats itself.