Abstract:
With the introduction of inexpensive and digital filmmaking alternatives a young generation of Cuban filmmakers is creating a distance from the centralized state ICAIC using non-theatrical distribution, and digital technology to change the audiovisual landscape. I explore how young filmmaker Aram Vidal has added another dimension to this generation creating critical films on Cuban identity and its diaspora from within Cuba and abroad.  I argue that through films like Vidal’s this generation is re-defining what Anderson calls Cuba’s imaginary community to include a more fluid definition of Cuban identity, while also challenging the definition of film and the audiovisual field.

Key words: Cuba, young filmmakers/ nuevos realizadores, audiovisual field, Aram Vidal, Muestra Joven-ICAIC, Imagined community

Opening image of divided street. (De Generación 2007)

While the film is not explicitly political, these first black and white images silently remind the audience that these key moments in Cuba’s history are omnipresent in the nation’s current reality.
The drawings culminate with the title De Generación appearing in white letters on a simple black background. At a closer look the letters of the film’s title also embody Cuba’s past and present. The letters ‘n’, ‘e’ and ‘r’ appear backwards, reminiscent of the Cyrillic alphabet, while the ‘o’ in the title is accented with Nike’s trademark “Swoosh”. The script reflects Cuba’s complicated history where the Soviet influences share the screen with the presence of US capitalism, materialism, and imported goods.

Title screen. (De Generación 2007)

Beneath the title is the English translation “Off Generation,” alluding to the film’s speakers and their struggle to define their generation. Another possible translation of the title is “Deterioration” from the Spanish verb “degenerar” to deteriorate. This translation points to a consistent tension throughout the film as to whether it is the young generation that is “Off” and not coming together in a collective struggle as previous generations of the Revolution, or if it is the Revolution itself that has deteriorated and fallen apart.

After the title screen, the camera focuses on a fishbowl view looking down onto Havana’s worn buildings. The camera then zooms in on the asphalt of an empty street while a few bikes pass as a young man begins to share thoughts on his generation. The speaker explains, “Me parece que entre la generación que nos ha procedido de nuestros padres y la de nosotros, hay bastante cambios. Yo pienso que en definitiva los sueños son un poco los mismos”. The camera changes to focus on another young Cuban man in his twenties explaining, “Ellos [the previous generation] tienen un background de todo el proceso de los últimos cuarenta años…que les da…muchos elementos para valorar, pero yo pienso que nosotros tenemos muchísimo menos prejuicio para valorar nuestro momento. Y eso abre el camino y abre espacio para que entre luz”.  As each of the individuals separately struggle to define their generation’s place in comparison to those of the past, the camera follows each of these speakers in different spaces further highlighting them as individuals, instead of the non-personalized collective spirit of their parents’ generation. They are not the idealized men or women of the Cuban Revolution, instead each provides a unique view of their generation reflecting the age of Cuba in transition. 

As these individuals remark on their generation, some voices yearn for a collective past or struggle. On a rooftop looking down onto Havana, one young man explains:

He voices a level of nostalgia for a generation that he was not a part of, but that had come together to accomplish what became the Revolution.  This young man highlights that while the Cuban Revolution continues, the Cuban youth have doubts and questions similar to their counterparts in different parts of the world regardless of Cuba’s national project. In a search of a collective identity, it could be the breakdown of a single collective identity and spirit that embodies the generation. This possible definition points to another revolution or change, breaking with the past narrative.

As this speaker explains that his generation is not inspired to come together, and create something as previous generations had done, the camera pans to show the lingering past revolutionary narrative hovering over Havana celebrating a particular identity. The billboards covered with the official discourse are in stark contrast with the speaker’s doubts. He finishes his thought while the camera displays the slogans of the Revolution, as a nostalgic instrumental lullaby plays in the background.

Billboards shot. (De Generación 2007)

The camera centers on the numerous billboards in Havana with revolutionary sayings and public service announcements including the one above that reads, “The future is ours. Long Live the Revolution!” Through the use of the absolute possessive pronoun “ours”, the message highlights a shared and collective identity. The next frame shows, “Save: Only Consume what is Necessary”, and finally “What’s Ours is Ours”. The revolutionary slogans that the camera registers in sepia appear to have expired. The young people do not reflect this same collective spirit. With a return to a young speaker, the lullaby ends, and the camera returns to vibrant colors breaking with the sepia slogan images reminding the audience of Cuba’s present idiosyncrasies.

One speaker sitting in a park explains that there is a ubiquitous political dogma imposed to support “the process”. As the young woman explains how the dogma is everywhere from the minute a young child learns to read to the messages on television, the camera shows the presence of the said dogma in a subtle way by focusing on an empty school playground surrounded by a chain link fence with a bust of the national hero, José Martí.  With this image, the camera registers the dogma beyond the explicit billboards but also within the educational system and the narrative of the country’s heroes.

José Martí bust in school playground. (De Generación 2007)

Just as the audience is ready to highlight socialism as the culprit of the confusion of this generation, and the omnipresence of dogma, one young Cuban woman is filmed seated in her house explaining that Cubans are too materialistic, “Nosotros tenemos el síndrome del materialismo. Tenemos el síndrome de que las ideas no repartieron lo que esperábamos…entonces nos hemos virado a la parte más concreta de la existencia”

Cuban woman discussing materialism. (De Generación 2007)

The materialism that this speaker criticizes is in contrasts with the past five decades of socialism, dogma, the US Embargo on Cuba, and the omnipresent billboards promoting austerity.

Unemployment and the inability to earn money contribute to the propensity for materialism, and are grand obstacles for many of the interviewees, who recognize that regardless of the socialist ideals of the Revolution money “funciona como pasaporte para moverte.” As the speakers discuss the limitations of employment, one young man explains that economic problems breed individualism, “hay una propensión al individualismo…cada cual…está preocupado por lo suyo y por salir adelante a su manera”. As he explains this tendency towards individualism, we begin to hear the sounds of marching boots. These boots echo the famous arrival of Fidel Castro and his troops to Havana in 1959 marking the Triumph of the Revolution. The sounds of the marching boots drown out all other sounds as the camera travels through Havana’s streets, much like the troops did years before. However, this time, the images that the camera shows accompanying the sounds of the marching boots are upside down.

Upside down image of Havana. (De Generación 2007)

The inverted images with the noise of the boots underline that this individualistic reality is in deep contrast with the original ideals of the Revolution. The Revolution may have produced the opposite outcome of its objective.

With these critiques the film still does not reflect a complete lack of hopelessness about the future of Cuba, but rather the diversity of thought, and a refusal of a single imposed narrative. This generation has a more permeable identity with elements from the past and the globalized present that views critique as a necessary part of a reflective life. The narration in this documentary hints at the challenges to the singular official narrative, with speakers talking directly to the camera with their explicit subjectivity. The camera surveys the face of each speaker who becomes a unique subject in this film far from the authorless statements of the revolution. In this way, if a common voice or narrative was the strength of the past decades of the Revolution, in this documentary we see various voices, subjectivity, and individual ideas about the Revolution.

The camera further registers the idiosyncrasies of the contemporary messages covering the walls and billboards of Havana. Advertisements for new products share spaces with revolutionary messages calling for austerity. As the camera pans the streets of downtown Havana, focusing on advertisements on trucks and signs for new fast food businesses, voices of radio advertisements for Romeo y Julieta cigarettes accompany the product images, before the radio switches to announce news about ETA political prisoners in Spain.

Image of advertisement on truck in Havana. (De Generación 2007)

The film further highlights how the revolution’s over fifty year old billboards share the cityscape with advertisements for the latest products, and international news. These conflicting messages coexist in today’s Cuba despite the original ideology or revolutionary billboard messages. The camera thus takes an inventory to document how today’s generation is confronted with conflicting narratives, different from the previous Cuban realities when supported by the Soviet Union.
As the camera returns to the interviews with the individual Cubans, one young man shares that he is tired of Cuba’s blinding sun and would like to see the cloudy days of France. He sits on the roof deck of a building overlooking Havana as he stares into the sun, with Ray Ban sunglasses and an Argentine soccer jersey. His eyewear and clothing are further proof of Cuba’s connection with life beyond the island’s limits.

Ray Ban glasses. (De Generación 2007)

These products serve as reminders of Cuba’s place in a globalized economy.  With imported products comes the ever-present Cuban topic of life beyond Cuba: travel, and emigration, while the inability to travel internationally remains a frustration for many of the speakers. As the camera focuses on the face of one Cuban man as he looks out through the slats of a window he explains,“Me cuesta un poco hablar de este tema…La cuestión de la inmigración nos ha dolido un poco y ver que el futuro de tu país solamente digamos que está en un marco donde lo único que puedas ver sea posibilidad de inmigrar…es bastante triste”.

Talking about leaving and travel. (De Generación 2007)

Four of the interviewees speak separately about travel and immigration, sharing a desire to travel, but not expressing that they would like to leave Cuba. Instead leaving and emigration hang like a cloud over these Cuban speakers as they contemplate their futures.

While questioning everything from their generation such as the meaning of the word ‘revolution’, materialism, and emigration, the short film leaves the audience with a hint of hope. The last interviewee laughs while seated on the ruins of a building in an abandoned park; he explains “somos parte…es bodrio el pastiche éste pero es lo que tenemos…suena fatalista pero, na’ eso se arregla también”; and then he stops talking and smiles at the camera. His words echo a tension between criticism and belonging amidst the deteriorating ruins of the park where he sits as he considers his generation.

The closing credits of the film are accompanied by the music of the highly critical, and at times censored, Cuban rap group, los Aldeanos. As the rappers share their criticism of Cuba’s official discourse, the camera shows the film’s credits imbedded in Chiclet, Nestle, and Brach candy wrappers. The camera scans the names that are glued to the pages of a book covering the book’s printed words. Between rappers and wrappers, the film positions this generation of Cuba at a crossroads between revolutionary discourse, isolationism, materialism, and globalization. 

Through the natural lighting and intimate testimonies, these young people share with the camera on a personal level without falling into the all-too-common binary of pro-revolution vs. dissidence dynamic. In the search for a common cause or a united voice, the film uncovers many voices and concludes with more questions than answers on what it is that defines today’s youth in Cuba, or what makes something Cuban in a globalized world of advertisements, materialism, and the looming option to illegally or legally emigrate to explore a world beyond Cuba.

IV. Ex generación:
The next Vidal film Ex Generación serves as a form of sequel to De Generación, exploring the lives of another six young Cubans who have emigrated. They share their own stories about leaving the island, their lives in Mexico, conditions they feel would be necessary to return to Cuba, and their Cuban identity as members of the diaspora. To make this short documentary, Vidal visited Mexico to film these testimonies while he was still living in Cuba. Vidal won funding from the Mexican Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes to create the film, and upon its screening he also won a special mention and documentary prize from the Asociación Hermanos Sainz in Cuba. Here Vidal examines the reasons why these young Cubans left the island, a topic that often remains riddled with political discourse in film and literary representations. As art mirrors life, Vidal later became a Cuban living in Mexico, personally experiencing many of the speakers’ stories.

The film’s title Ex generación, or Ex generation, refers to a generation that previously existed and no longer does, as if Cuban identity were directly linked to a physical presence on the island. Upon emigrating, Cubans have faced a form of an identity abyss, consisting of years of official mistreatment by the Cuban government. For example the Cuban government has referred to emigrants as gusanos [worms] for having abandoned the country. This treatment, like many aspects of Cuba, is in transition, and works such as Vidal’s Ex generación, and social media itself have contributed to this mentality shift recognizing the possibility of being Cuban off the island. Regardless of decades of official discourse, the speakers in this film explain that their decision to leave Cuba has not erased their Cuban identity. Instead many of the speakers expand upon the difficulties of leaving, and how it has left a mark on their Cuban identity.

In the first images of the film, the camera opens with the traffic of Mexico City as cars slowly navigate the congested highway, followed by a moving train, and the looming advertisements that are a trope in Vidal’s work. The opening images of the film immediately establish the theme--people in movement, outside of their native Cuba.

Traffic in Mexico City. (Ex Generación 2009)

These images of traffic packed highways, and urban light rail, and the cityscape are in direct contrast with the deteriorating empty asphalt streets of Havana from the opening scenes of De Generación.

Similar to De Generación, the camera gives a panorama of the speakers’ new environment, followed by close ups, as each speaker tells his or her story personalizing the politicized act of emigration. The speakers represent a range of experiences including a professional ballet dancer, a public health worker, a Mexican-Cuban, and a nuclear physicist to name a few. The speakers highlight exactly what pushed them to leave the island: including economic reasons, career opportunities, a need to provide for their families, or a desire to express themselves freely.

The camera focuses on the nuclear physicist as he states that while it was difficult to decide to leave Cuba, the professional possibilities on the island were slim. As he speaks, the camera shows a Mexican billboard advertising home supplies, with the words “Los grandes logros de la vida, adquieren sentido en casa”.  This message is in contrast with the words of the physicist as he explains that it did not make sense for him to stay home in Cuba. The modern billboard advertisement is also in contrast with the sepia revolutionary messages plastered on the billboards in De Generación, yet both these billboards in Mexico and those of De Generación reflect the competing external messages that surround the individuals distant from their daily realities.

Billboard in Mexico. (Ex Generación 2009)

After the physicist, the camera travels to the face of a young woman telling her particular story of living a life between Mexico and Cuba with her Mexican mother and Cuban father. She left Cuba for her career and remarked that her first full year in Mexico was horrible, “fue un año espantoso.” Although she was the most prepared of all the speakers in terms of life off the island, having been to Mexico previously, she still struggled with the transition.

While the camera travels outside in search of another interviewee, a young Cuban woman discusses that the majority of the people that leave are “la gente joven,” because they need to “decir cosas” and “la salida es salir. No te están dejando con muchas opciones.” With this reflection on the fact that often times those that leave are young people, we are reminded of the looming topic of leaving Cuba that the young people contemplate in the final scenes of De Generación. For many of the young people in De Generación, leaving the island might be the only feasible option that would grant them the coveted opportunity to travel freely. While this is the reality for many young Cubans, the camera captures her story as a unique subject and not merely a national statistic.

After discussing leaving Cuba the next question the speakers struggle with is that of finding ‘home’. The camera zooms in on one speaker as he explains that upon returning to Mexico after a visit to Cuba, he realized that Mexico had become his home. While Mexico has replaced Cuba for one man, Cuba remains present for others. For example, while the physicist adamantly speaks about his decision to leave Cuba, the camera begins to zoom in on his desk. The screen saver on his computer is a picture of el Malecón, and a book on Cuba rests against his computer. While his words show that he has come to terms with his decision, the camera captures the items on his desk that prove that Cuba is not far from his thoughts.

Image of desk in Mexico. (Ex Generación 2009)

This image suggests an overreaching question in this film about being Cuban outside of Cuba. The possibility of maintaining their Cuban identity is a topic that lingers over many of the speakers given the strict political and cultural definitions throughout the Revolution of being Cuban in direct association with living on the island. The physicist explains that it does not matter where a Cuban is living, there will always be a connection. This mentality differs from decades of official and social rigid definitions of Cubanness and reflects a transitioning mentality in terms of identity.

The second half of the film focuses primarily on exploring the question of the speakers’ Cuban identity, and how the government should treat them as Cubans living off the island. One speaker explains:

The speaker makes reference to the official treatment over five decades of those who have abandoned the country. While the Cuban government has recently changed its treatment of some Cubans who have emigrated, making it possible to return to the country, one speaker explains that the Cubans who have left still are not received with open arms by the government and often face entrance fees upon arriving to the country. As the speaker tells the camera, that those who leave could include anyone, the film appears to create a dialogue with the final images of De Generación as four of the six speakers contemplate leaving Cuba. They are not the demonized people that have been ostracized by the state instead they could be any Cuban.

Once having left, a very real concern and challenge that faces an emigrant is the question of returning. The ballet dancer observes how many of his Mexican friends celebrate the arrival of their emigrant families while in Cuba, for this speaker, this is not the case.  He explains

While filmmakers such as Vidal, and many from his generation, have embraced Cuban identity on and off the island, the young dancer’s words underline that the mentality of punishing or blaming the ‘deserters’ remains. 

Similar to the concluding tone of Vidal’s De Generación, the physicist’s final words are optimistic about change in Cuba and about the Cubanness of those living abroad. He explains that Cubans abroad are still Cuban, who for now, live outside of their country. He remains hopeful, for while it does not make sense to live in Cuba today, the tough transition that Cuba currently faces cannot last forever, and Cuba will have better “luck” in the future.

As the film concludes, the screen becomes black with the sentence “Cada año treinta mil cubanos abandonan la isla definitivamente”, followed by the sentence “más de la mitad de los emigrantes cubanos son menores de 35 años”.  This reminds the audience that while the speakers have finished telling their own stories, there are entire young generations of Cubans in movement, whose voices have not been heard, and who contribute to the Cuban national identity from wherever they may reside. This final message alludes to a connection with Vidal’s previous film De Generaciónas where the speakers struggled to define their generation.  Emigration and Immigration may be part of the defining characteristics of the contemporary young generation, or being Cuban beyond Cuba as well as the fragmented multiple personal narratives rather than a single collective voice. As the credits roll with the LaTour’s song “Otro amanecer” and black and white images of Havana, there is both a complex nostalgia for Cuba and these stories in movement, that are representative of many contemporary Cubans, especially those of the younger generation. Through works such as Vidal’s, these speakers demonstrate that they too make up a part of the nation’s identity, and contribute to the voices represented in the young audiovisual field now available for streaming on YouTube.

These films are in dialogue with each other. The young people in De Generación contemplate leaving and living off the island, and Ex generación follows Cubans that do seek a life off the island focusing on this young diaspora in Mexico, a country that has had fairly positive relations with Cuba. Ex generacións hows a complex personal side of emigration and immigration, not only the topic of trying to fit in to the new culture or society, but also how one’s identity changes or not upon leaving.

The theme of identity also pertains to the complexity of the film’s identity, and the compound identities surrounding contemporary cinema. Vidal made Ex generación in Mexico, while living in Cuba, with support from a Mexican fund, yet premiered it at the Muestra Joven in Havana, thus begging the question that persists over the works of the nuevos realizadores, and of much of contemporary film: is the short documentary still considered an example of Cuban cinema? With non-Cuban funding, filmed in Mexico, and the director currently residing off the island, Vidal has maintained his presence at the annual Muestra through the diaspora stories that he shares in this work, staying present digitally from afar challenging official definitions of the Cuban film corpus and the imagined community to include the Cubans in movement through digital technology.

V. Conclusions:
These two films embody the simple aesthetics, limited budgets, and socially critical works that define this generation of filmmaking, pushing the boundaries of both Cuban identity and film. While these artists have made exceptional changes in film, there are still many challenges that this generation faces that the nueva realizadora, María Elisa Leal, in a personal interview, explains. According to Leal the annual Muestra, while an important venue, is limited to six days to a specific part of Havana and as a result nuevos realizadores’ works do not garner enough visibility in the Muestra. The Muestra also remains connected to the ICAIC and does not have the independence that this generation of filmmakers wants and needs.

The ICAIC still holds the purse strings and has a level of control, albeit less due to digital technology. However the ICAIC faces a crisis that has become more pronounced with the April 2013 death of its original founder Alfredo Guevara, marking a new phase within the Cuban film community both within and beyond the ICAIC. As the ICAIC looks to reorganize behind closed doors, the island’s top filmmakers, actors, and nuevos realizadores have come together demanding a space at the negotiation table to redefine the state’s role in Cuban filmmaking through public letters, town hall monthly meetings, and discussions with the ICAIC. In the demands and negotiations with the ICAIC, the topic of carving a space for independent film is one of the most discussed at these meetings, especially since while independent film and the works of the nuevos realizadores are not completely illegal, their independent production companies are still not recognized by the state. Until they earn the independent status and space they deserve, filmmakers such as Vidal and others from his generation continue to create films such as these without the state’s complete approval, challenging not only the limits of film but also the definition of what it is that makes one Cuban.

Notes