FILM-CUBA:
Women ‘Invisible’ Behind
the Cameras
Interview with Professor
Danae Diéguez
HAVANA (IPS) -
Filmmaking has not
escaped the overwhelming
"machismo" of Cuban
society. Getting a foot
in the door in the
industry, an almost
exclusively male
preserve, is still
wishful thinking for
most women directors.
In the five-decade
history of the state
Cuban Institute of
Cinematographic Arts and
Industry (ICAIC), only
one feature-length
fiction film has been
entirely directed by a
woman: "De cierta manera"
(One Way or Another), by
Sara Gómez (1943-1974).
Her work was considered
defiantly critical and
controversial, and is
hardly known outside
academic circles or the
world of film critics.
Filmmaker Rebeca Chávez
is now in the final
stages of editing "Rojo
vivo" (Red Hot), her
film inspired by the
armed struggle against
the dictatorship of
Fulgencio Batista
(1952-1959) in the city
of Santiago de Cuba, 850
kilometres east of
Havana.
Danae Diéguez, a
professor at the Faculty
of Media, Communication
and Audiovisual Arts of
the Cuban Higher
Institute of Art (ISA),
has devoted special
attention to the study
of women’s participation
in local filmmaking,
where "political will
has not been enough to
eliminate machismo and
the patriarchal
culture."
Diéguez, who is writing
her doctoral thesis on
"Women Behind the Lens:
Cuban Films Directed by
Women," told IPS
correspondent Dalia
Acosta in an e-mail
interview that it is
both a cultural and
economic phenomenon.
IPS: In your essay "On
Women’s View of
Violence" you said that
many women directors in
Cuba suffer from
invisibility. Why do you
think that is?
DANAE DIÉGUEZ: Firstly,
there are very few women
filmmakers compared to
the number of men. The
statistics count for
something, but they are
not the most important
factor. There could be
equal numbers of women
and men, with the women
still reproducing
patriarchal patterns.
The key, in filmmaking,
would be access on equal
terms, with that
equality of opportunity
leading to drawing up a
film project, presenting
it and carrying it out.
The other thing is that
filmmaking has
historically been a
man’s world. Women took
care of other things,
such as costumes,
make-up, and in the
best-case scenario,
editing, but very rarely
did they direct.
Then we must add that
although film is art,
it’s also an industry. I
can sit at home alone to
write a novel, and I
just write it, but the
world of film makes the
whole creative process
more complex, because of
the broad
infrastructure. So we’re
talking about an obvious
cultural phenomenon that
is also economic in
nature.
Combine both elements,
and you get what
probably prompted Cuban
filmmaker Mayra Vilasís
to say "it’s easier for
a woman to become an
airline pilot than a
film director."
Within ICAIC, apart from
Sara Gómez, no woman has
been able to make a
feature fiction film. We
had to wait for "Mujer
transparente"
(Transparent Woman) in
1991 to see fiction
stories by three women
directors (who worked as
a team with two men). So
women have produced
documentaries, which are
different from fiction
and tend to reach a
narrower audience.
Other female directors
have emerged, outside
the structure of ICAIC.
Although some of them
have matured over time
and have a very
extensive track record,
they have remained
outside the centre that
legitimises filmmaking
on the island.
I won’t make a list of
names because it would
be unfair if I forgot
someone, but for example
Teresa Ordoqui directed
a 16 millimetre
feature-length fiction
film at the Television
Film Studios in 1989.
It’s called "Te llamarás
Inocencia" and took an
interesting
cinematographic
approach, but has hardly
been talked about, if at
all.
Another important reason
why there are more women
in the field is the move
to video, a medium that
"democratises"
filmmaking. This is a
key factor for women who
found celluloid a
barrier to
self-expression.
IPS: Do you think that
there is a specific
woman’s view, based on
gender awareness, in
Cuban filmmaking?
DD: I don’t think so.
There are particular
moments when one could
speak of a female
perspective, in
feature-length films as
well as in
documentaries, but it is
not present as a
consistent style. I am
speaking of all Cuban
films, made by men and
women alike, because a
man can take a feminine
approach, and vice
versa.
Being a woman does not
necessarily mean having
a gender perspective,
nor does having studied
women and their
achievements necessarily
mean that one has gender
awareness, which
encompasses many other
things. The fact that I,
as an academic, or
another person as a
critic reads, studies
and writes about the
issue, is a separate
matter.
IPS: In your opinion,
why is gender-based
violence a recurrent
topic in the most recent
films by young Cuban
women directors?
DD: It’s one among many
issues that the younger
generation is dealing
with. When I study a
body of works directed
by women, I find
recurring themes, and
that helps me
systematise them and
make them visible, which
is my primary goal.
Gender-based violence
has also become more
visible in our society,
and in the world in
general. Cuba has
special features in this
respect.
For my generation, born
in the 1970s, the world
was different. We didn’t
see violence as
something close to us,
but as outside of us.
The 1990s changed
things, and in recent
years violence and its
different manifestations
have been talked about
more openly. Lizette
Vila, a director who has
been including the topic
in her documentaries for
some time, did not
address the subject of
battered women in Cuba
until 2007.
As Cuban historian Julio
César González Pagés has
said, "the main
manifestations of
violence are those that
men exercise over women,
over other men, and over
themselves."
Young women live in this
world, and look at it
with their creative
vision, and there are no
answers, only questions
that are evident in
their films, related to
the cycle of violence
and its acceptance as
normal. This is
something that has drawn
my attention in the
works directed by women.
IPS: What contribution
have films directed by
women made -- and may
yet make in the future
-- to Cuban
cinematography, in terms
of their purely
aesthetic dimension as
well as in their social
resonance?
DD: Their contribution
is not in aesthetic
terms, although there
are interesting moments
in some of them. This
should be studied in
more detail. I have not
tried to verify whether
or not they define a
particularly female
aesthetic angle, or if
they simply produce
images that are
resistant to patriarchal
culture.
In the world of
filmmaking, gender
equity will not be
achieved until women
have the opportunity to
carry out their
projects.
Recently, at the Seventh
Exhibition of Young
Filmmakers, thanks to
the sensitivity and
intelligence of the
organisers, we put
several items on the
ICAIC agenda, including
the question of women
directors of
photography. Cuba has
many of these, some of
whose work is of very
high quality, who have
not been able to break
into the industry simply
because they are women.
Times have changed,
technology has made
equipment lighter, film
schools exist and with a
camera in hand great
things can be achieved,
even outside the
industry. This year’s
exhibition showed, among
other things, the
increasing quality of
the youngest women, and
the themes they film,
which are often related
to the world of women.
This is the way things
stand. Now it is up to
those who make and carry
out the decisions in our
institutions to take
gender equity seriously
as the necessary path to
greater justice.
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