The Change Mariner

New "Vatican" For Filmmakers In Cuba

CubaNet.org:
... A 50-minute drive from Havana, the international film and television school immediately strikes the visitor as a colonial compound in the tropics. A staff of over 200 full-time cooks, maids, gardeners, builders, drivers, translators and security staff cater for the film student's every possible need. Internet access is three cents a minute, cable TV plays in the 24-hour cafeteria and, on Sundays, there are even bus trips to Varadero, the 20-mile strip of unblemished white sand that is the Caribbean's largest tourist resort.

The school's Cuban director, Julio García Espinosa, explains the justification behind such expenditure. "When I was at film school in Rome in the 1950s, Alessandro Bonavetti, a famous Italian director of the time, asked us students what the most important thing was for film-makers to possess. We of course answered 'passion', 'talent', 'vision', but he just shook his head. 'Health,' was his reply. It was true. We were so poor. We wrote on waste paper collected from the streets. So when I had the chance to set up this school I knew the students must be free to concentrate on their work."

...The school's vision of not only educating its students in the how-tos of film-making but also trying to change the globe's cinematic landscape has drawn some of the world's top cinema talent to its lecture theatres. Steven Soderbergh got quite a grilling from some of the students, unhappy about his drugs 'n' guns portrayal of Mexico in Traffic. Spielberg enthused about the energy of the place, spoke out against the embargo and was reported as saying that he'd love to make a film in Cuba. But the students' favourite remains Francis Ford Coppola, who visited in 1998: he hung around the cafe for two days and cooked pasta for everyone in the canteen.

The reason the Americans can bypass the US travel ban to the island lies with Castro. García and García Márquez persuaded Castro to make the school a non-government organisation. "You're not actually standing on Cuban soil," say the school's Juan José and Oriel Rodriguez. "This place is a sort of Vatican for film-makers." Nevertheless, water, petrol and electricity, tightly rationed on the rest of the island, are supplied at a discount by the Cuban authorities.