Cuban American News and Information
Rob Sequin | Havana Journal
Megan Williams, the Director/Producer of Tell Me Cuba sent me the DVD and asked me to have a look at it. We had a brief phone conversation but we did not talk about politics too much so I wasn’t sure which way the film would lean. Of course I was assuming there would be a “leaning” since the subject matter is Cuba. So, I began to watch the DVD with an open mind looking for the leaning.
The documentary leads off with a brief overview of the history of Cuba but the real meat of the documentary comes half way through when old Cuban exiles begin to tell their stories about their earlier lives in Cuba and then the passion for the removal of Fidel Castro… at all costs.
The following people are interviewed or seen in the film
Alejandro Hartmann
George McCatty
Alfredo Duran
Pedro Fuentes Cid
Ismael Sene
Bernardo Benes
Ilena Ros-Lehtinen
William Delahunt
Silvia Wilhelm
Richard Walden
Margarita Morales
Hortensia Cuevas de Sorrubbas
Orlando Bosch
Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo
If you know a little about the Cuban exile community, you will recognize some controversial names on that list. The interview with Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo was very uplifting and one cannot help but to wish him well with his methods of engagement with Cuba while one cannot avoid getting chills while watching the interview of the terrorist (yet hero of the old Cuban exile community), Orlando Bosch.
To me this movie illustrates the tired, sad old rhetoric of the hard line Cuban exiles and the likes of Ilena Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz Balart brothers.
Learn more about this unique documentary at TellMeCuba.com
Megan Williams is an independent documentary film producer and the recipient of numerous awards including an Academy Award Nomination, Short Subject Documentary for Language Says It All; and the Alfred I. duPont - Columbia University School of Journalism Award for TVTV’s Lord of the Universe. Williams’ work covers events such as the Democratic and Republican Conventions; the Super Bowl, the Oscars, Bob Dylan’s Hard Rain Concert, HIV/AIDS and childhood deafness. Tell Me Cuba is Williams’ directorial debut.
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I went to the website, TellMeCuba.com, and found it not possible to tell much about it. Could not open the clips either. So, I’d want to know where in the San Francisco Bay Ares is the documentary being shown, if anywhere. I could try to muster the courage, to transcend my reluctance to see and hear what others say about, what indeed is there to talk about?
Mine is the last generation born and raised, educated, grown and nurtured in pre-Castro Cuba. The next generation, our children’s generation, born in Cuba but grown and nurtured on American and other soils, missed the lilt of the old tongue, the aroma of curing tobacco and drying coffeebeans, the rhythm of the sellers’ ‘pregon,’ the song of the street bongo, the dance of the tiny colibri. The next generation, nurtured in Castro’s Cuba or in the Cuba of exile, they do not know Cuba.
For all their good will, experience and best intentions, all that Ms. Williams or Ms. Irmas or anyone else can capture today is Today’s Cuba: Castro’s or the Exiles’—either and both inescapably tinged with America’s odour and sound, fears and forms.
My Cuba, the Cuba that breathed Music and danced Joy, the Cuba that lived the moment with all the passion in its blood, neither bemoaning its yesterdays nor caring about tomorrows, that Cuba gave its soul to a short-lived and glorious moment in Time’s long sequence.
A glorious moment itself born before I was and killed in my lifetime by America’s fears and Batista’s betrayal, and now long since buried in the black hole of Castro’s egotism. That Cuba is now dead and gone! Never to return.
We can bemoan its passing, we can mourn its death, but never will its soul be captured or regained.
To us who once knew her are left the memory of a shining Pearl, not great but graceful, intense, and gloriously beautiful. And a duty not to bismirch the memory and not to further sully the grace and beauty that was with further hatreds and angers, with violence of word, deed or thought—with more of what once destroyed her. It is time to forgive the Past and make ready because…
________
The future belongs to the birds of prey, to those already poised on beach heads and waiting behind dunes, to those wading through shallows once pristine and clear, now turbid and dark. The future belongs to birds of prey blinded by ignorance and confused in their blindness…
But no one today can afford the luxury of greater blindness and deeper ignorance than we have already indulged.
Hello….a message for Megan Williams from Mark S. Fisher….yeah….Mavrick, Michelina and I are here in Riverside, California….so let us exchange our current e-mail addresses….mine are:
for immediate contacts and for email with attachment
....by the way as of November 19, 2009, I now am applying for a part time introvert job as Art Instructor at Riverside Community College….oh yeah….we will see how great RCC is as an equal employer….Ha! I am thriving to have another part time job in the film industry as well….Ha!
Honest Humans help make America greater but not clever political liars….
Why was Jimmy Carter only able to last for one presidency term?
George Bush managed to cowboy up for two terms with whatever?
Look forward to getting your response.
All the Best with Hugs,
MARK S. FISHER
Mark S. Fisher to exchange email addresses with Megan Williams
for immediate contacts:
Mavrick, Michelina and I are living in Riverside, California….and we are shaping up positively as always….
All the Best,
MARK
A queen never makes any “L” move or turn so that is the first qualification we are to find among ladies with excellently honest leadership….and for a 100% hetero king, he is the only one to do castling.
Mark,
What are you talking about?
Signature:
This is my signature - get yours in Your Control Panel. Go ahead and add a link to your site. Self promotion is permitted as long as it is beneficial to our community.
