PUTNEY DEBATER
A personal blog
Cuba and COP26: Forbidden Thoughts
What happens when the independent filmmaker finishes a film and begins the business of getting it out, hustling for screenings and posting on social media to reach the audience you’ve made it for? You start to have to think about the conditions for its reception, or what marketing people reductively call targeting – only you don’t have a marketing budget. The problem is the law of the internet: the network you want to reach is always further away than the network you’re able to reach from the network where you start off. This is where we’re at with our new documentary, Cuba: Living Between Hurricanes, about ecology and the prospects for sustainable development in this Communist Caribbean island. Read more
What we didn’t film in Cuba
Cuba in mid-October was nearly as hot as in July, when we finished shooting ‘Cuba: Living Between Hurricanes‘. We went back to show the almost finished film to our collaborators in Havana and in the small fishing port of Caibarién, where much of our filming was focussed. Our efforts were rewarded by lively discussion and we returned home to make some adjustments in response to the feedback. The film is now finished, and will have its first public screening in Havana in December during the Havana Film Festival.
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/369266783[/vimeo]
Coming soon – Cuba: Living Between Hurricanes (Cuba: Vivir entre ciclones)
The Cuba we left behind when we finished shooting Cuba: Living Between Hurricanes in July came under renewed pressure from the North in September. Fresh sanctions by Washington on oil shipments from Venezuela plunged Cuba into a fuel crisis. There wasn’t enough petrol in the pumps. Friends in Havana told us that people were instructed to stay home if they live too far to walk in to work. There has been huge pressure on public transport. Priority was given to hospitals and food distribution. Now, as we finish editing, we are due for a short return trip to Cuba to screen a preview for our collaborators and obtain their feedback. It looks like getting around Havana will be even more difficult than usual, and whether we’ll be able to make it to the province, some five hours drive, is open to doubt, although other reports say things should improve during October.
Cuba: Living Between Hurricanes is a film is about the elements – hurricanes and rain, the sea and the earth. About a fishing port on the north coast of Cuba which has seen better days: Caibarién, where Hurricane Irma – one of the most powerful ever to sweep the Caribbean – made landfall on 17th September 2017.
