Demian Rabilero del Castillo was removed from his position for programming works by members of the Assembly of Cuban Filmmakers during the III Audiovisual Week, held last April.
The Assembly of Cuban Filmmakers (ACC) denounced the sanction imposed as an act of censorship Demian Rabilero del Castillo, director of the “Bernabé Muñiz Guibernau” Museum of Image and Sound in Santiago de Cuba.
Rabilero was removed from his position for programming works by members of the ACC during the III Audiovisual Week, held from April 8 to 13.
An act issued by government authorities disputes that Rabilero included ACC filmmakers and others who do not live in Cuba, but have positions contrary to the regime, in the event.
The document questions the curatorship carried out by Rabilero by programming documentaries “that do not conform to cultural policy” and not having consulted the Provincial Heritage Center.
Based on Decree Law No. 13 of 2020, Rabilero was accused of “breaching the Constitution” and acting negligently in his responsibility.
Due to its importance in the debate that has been generated in Cuban society after this event, Strong coffee publishes below the declaration of the Assembly of Cuban Filmmakers in its entirety.
DECLARATION OF THE ASSEMBLY OF CUBAN FILMMAKERS
Coinciding with the first anniversary of the reactivation of the Assembly of Cuban Filmmakers (ACC), we publicly denounce a new act of censorship and exclusion perpetrated by the cultural authorities of our country.
Demian Rabilero, director of the “Bernabé Muñíz Guibernau” Museum of Image and Sound, member of the ACC and prominent promoter of our cinema in the province of Santiago de Cuba, has been arbitrarily separated of his job. The reasons given, as recorded in the minutes issued by the authorities involved, are:
“That comrade Rabilero del Castillo, in his capacity as Director of the aforementioned Museum, in the design of the III Audiovisual Week to be held from April 8 to 13, 2024, put in the programming a series of documentaries that belong to filmmakers who are members of the Assembly of Cuban Filmmakers, an organization not recognized by the Cuban State, which brings together filmmakers who live on the Island and others who do not live there, but have positions contrary to the Cuban Government.”
Furthermore, the minutes explicitly condemn the fact that the curatorship carried out by Demián includes documentaries by members of the ACC that “do not conform to the cultural policy of our country”, as well as the fact of not having consulted the Provincial Heritage Center to it. Adding: “The fact is aggravated if we take into account that this Association (ACC) makes a donation to the Book Museum and the colleague in question makes a video promoting the Week, showing the donation and thanking said Association (ACC) for it… ”
With these “arguments”, and citing Article 29.1 of Decree Law No. 13/2020, Demián has been removed from his position, nothing less than for “failing to comply with the Constitution” and the regulations that must govern his work, while at the same time He is accused of “negligent”, ignoring his career and the prestige he enjoys inside and outside his province.
A year ago, the copyright of another Cuban filmmaker was violated by these same authorities, provoking the indignation of almost 700 creators who signed the declaration issued by the Assembly of Cuban Filmmakers regarding those events. Nothing has changed since then; Acts of censorship, exclusion and institutional abuse continue. Demián is the tip of an iceberg. Members of our ACC have been pressured in different ways. While this happens, clientelism gains space with the allocation of resources that until very recently did not exist, at the same time that a triumphalist narrative is established that continues to elude the true underlying problems of Cuban cinema referring precisely to exclusion, censorship and institutional abuse exercised in an increasingly crude and aggressive manner.
The donation we sent to the Museum of Image and Sound consists of books on cinema, posters of Cuban films and other materials with which we modestly intended to support a unique institution of its kind, of incalculable value for Cuban Cinema and Culture. . In turn, the films that are questioned in the III Audiovisual Week are outstanding titles of national cinema, some with an important international career. The only “crime” of Demián Rabilero It has consisted of working for his institution, for the complex diversity of Cuban cinema and for a Cuban Culture with everyone and for the good of all. Faced with that, the ghost of The Enchanted Deer is republished, showing the true face of those who see our Assembly of Cuban Filmmakers as a danger and not a space for the discussion of ideas and thought.
It is up to us to reaffirm then that our fight against dogmatism, exclusion and institutional abuse is still valid. At this point we once again draw attention to a very eloquent fact: much of the best talent in our cinema is now in exile, driven by this same intransigence. Soon, many of the young people who are training in our film schools today and those who are trying to make their first films will end up doing the same. Even when?
We reiterate the civic right of our union to work on the issues that concern it and to oppose a cultural policy determined to not recognize the complexity of the Cuban reality nor our right to reflect it from a critical perspective. At the same time, we express our total solidarity with Demián Rabilero. None of our members will be left alone in the face of arbitrariness of this type. Nothing will separate us from our commitment to a free, diverse and inclusive Cuban Cinema, always attentive to the desires of the people of which we are a part.
Group of Representatives of the Assembly of Cuban Filmmakers.
06/17/2024
