{"id":207784,"date":"2019-10-19T18:04:06","date_gmt":"2019-10-19T22:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=207784"},"modified":"2019-10-19T21:38:53","modified_gmt":"2019-10-20T01:38:53","slug":"americas-media-initiative-a-cuban-visions-series-that-closes-distances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/cuba-usa\/americas-media-initiative-a-cuban-visions-series-that-closes-distances\/","title":{"rendered":"Americas Media Initiative: A Cuban Visions Series that Closes Distances"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alexandra Halkin is the Director of Americas Media Initiative (AMI), a non-profit organization that works with Cuban filmmakers living in Cuba. Her work in Latin America goes back to 1998, when she founded the Chiapas Media Project, an award winning bi-national organization that has trained over 200 indigenous men and women in video production in Chiapas and Guerrero, Mexico. In 2004, Alexandra was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for the Latin American Indigenous Video Initiative (LAIVI) and in 2007 was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for the Indigenous Audiovisual Archive (IAA) in Oaxaca, Mexico. She has produced four documentaries in Guerrero, Mexico and her work has been screened at film and video festivals worldwide. In 2010, she completed a short documentary,\u00a0<\/span>LIVING JUAREZ<\/span><\/i>, which looks at the neighborhood of Villas de Salv\u00e1rcar where 15 youths were murdered at a birthday party in January 2010.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Alex Halkin (left)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since January 2019, Alexandra has been programming the Cuban Visions Film Series, a new film series organized by AMI and Full Spectrum Features, presenting the work of Cuban filmmakers to Chicago audiences, providing a unique window into both early revolutionary and contemporary Cuban society. The bi-monthly series includes six programs at the <\/span>Athenaeum Theatre<\/span><\/a> in Chicago and features a diverse range of Cuban films including animation, short fiction, and documentaries, covering issues such as racial inequity, the Cuban economy, Cuban internationalism, Afro-Cuban identity, women\u2019s rights, and more. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Each of the screenings is followed by a conversation, with Cuban filmmakers, activists, journalists, and scholars. These thought-provoking and rarely seen Cuban films challenge U.S. audience\u2019s long-held misconceptions about past and present Cuban reality. In the following interview, Alexandra answers questions about this series as well her in depth and yet, mostly unknown work in the field of Cuban film.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Can you describe what is AMI and the work you have done as its director?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

AMI was founded in 2010, and since then, we have been working nationally to bring the work of emerging Cuban filmmakers to diverse venues and audiences – from elementary schools in Baton Rouge to urban farmers in Detroit. In 2012, we organized our first <\/span>Closing Distances<\/span><\/i>\/Cerrando Distancias Documentary tour that brought the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) on their first visit to Cuba in coordination with ICAIC. Since then we have had four tours that have traveled to 14 towns in the Cuban provinces, screening films at local cinemas, video salas, art schools and UNEAC and had more than 1000 Cuban citizens in attendance. The films provoked critical and meaningful discussions with the audiences on global topics such as immigration, the Iraq War and racism, among others.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

AMI has also been involved with the Muestra Joven, an important film festival that with the support of the ICAIC, promotes screenings and critical discussions around the work of young filmmakers. Since 2015, AMI has been providing a cash prize for documentaries in production at the Muestra\u2019s Haciendo Cine pitch session. We have also brought documentary producers and filmmakers to present at the Muestra as part of our <\/span>Cerrando Distancias<\/span><\/i> tours.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since 2011, AMI has invited 18 Cuban filmmakers to the U.S. Our first U.S. tour brought the community media project, TV Serrana to 13 U.S. universities across the country. AMI has distributed over 800 DVDs of Cuban independent and community media to more than 93 universities, as well as to individuals in the U.S. and Canada. And we now have 13 films in our Cuba DVD catalogue with the independent distributor Icarus Films in New York.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Alex Halkin. Photo: Josep Filer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What motivated you to put together this complicated series with the participation of artists from Cuba at a moment like this?<\/b><\/p>\n

I was invited to brainstorm about a film program last year by Full Spectrum Features (FSF), a non-profit based in Chicago. FSF is housed in a building, the Athenaeum Theatre that has a beautiful theater and the manager of the Athenaeum was interested in developing the space as a film venue. I suggested doing a year-long Cuban film series using film as a jumping off point to discuss larger issues of interest to a U.S. audience. There are many commonalities U.S. citizens share with their Cuban counterparts and film is an excellent bridge to understanding these shared experiences.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I also wanted to bring Cubans for post film discussions, and was pretty confident I could identify Cubans who had current U.S. visas, as I wanted to make an effort to bring Cubans living on the island, not just Cubans in the U.S. I also felt it was important at this moment in time to push back against the Trump Administration\u2019s effort to isolate Cuba, which gets no where and helps no one. There have also been U.S. citizens who traveled to Cuba on People to People delegations between 2015 and 2018 (before the People to People delegations were ended by the Trump Administration), who have come back from those trips with lots of questions and an increased interest in Cuba. I thought the Cuban Visions series could answer some of those questions and give a Chicago audience a more profound understanding of the Cuban experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

How did you select the topics for the screenings? Can you offer a brief description of each one of them? Racial Inequality; LGBT; Economics; Women Filmmakers; Revolutionary Aspirations and The Personal is Political? Why these topics?<\/b><\/p>\n

The topics for the films came mostly from documentary films we either distribute through AMI or have access to with English subtitles, which cover topics of interest in both countries, that both countries are trying to grapple with and are critical to understand the current situation in Cuba.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another important consideration for the topics was identifying scholars, activists and filmmakers who could be present for the post-screening Q&As and be able to provide insight and nuance to the conversations. Luckily, we were able to make this happen through our extensive on the ground network in Cuba and the U.S. For Racial Inequality and Class in a Changing Cuba, the first one of the series, we screened <\/span>Canci\u00f3n de Barrio (Song of the Street)<\/span><\/i>, a film by Alejandro Ram\u00edrez Anderson, followed by a Q&A with journalist M\u00f3nica Rivero and Cuban-American scholar Odette Casamayor-Cisneros. <\/span><\/p>\n