DATA OF INTEREST
GUEST:
ORLANDO JIMÉNEZ LEAL
HOST:
JOSÉ LUIS APARICIO
Synopsis:
Sixty years after Fidel Castro gave the Words to Intellectuals speech, marking the cultural policies of the Cuban Revolution following the censorship of the documentary PM by Orlando Jiménez Leal and Sabá Cabrera Infante, the narration of these events from the mouth of their protagonist, the filmmaker who never returned to Cuba, but who hasn't entirely left it, in conversation with a young filmmaker censored in different conditions in 2020.
Bio:
Orlando Jiménez Leal
(Havana Cuba, 1941)
Orlando Jiménez Leal (Havana, 1941) is a Cuban director who resides in the United States. In 1961 he made the short film PM, which was censored and confiscated by the revolutionary regime, provoking a political-cultural polemic and Fidel Castro´s famous speech “Words to Intellectuals,” where he defines the cultural policies of the Cuban government. Following these events he goes into exile, going on to become one of the most important Cuban filmmakers of the diaspora. His fiction film El Súper (1979) received the Grand Prize at the Mannheim film festival, the award of the Asociation de Cinéma d'Art et d'Essay at the Biarritz Festival, and was selected for the showcase at the Venice Film Festival. In 1984 he co-directs together with Néstor Almendros the documentary Conducta impropia, which obtained first prize at the Strasbourg International Film Festival on Human Rights and Best Documentary at the Barcelona Film Festival. The movie reflects the historic panorama of repression against those whose personal conduct exceeds the parameters established by Castroism. Among his other films are La otra Cuba (1983) and 8-A (1993).
