On her book On Location in Cuba: Street Filmmaking during Times of Transition
Cover Interview of July 05, 2009
In a nutshell
Cuba has undergone dramatic changes during the past two decades. As global tides washed over the island in the early 1990s, Cubans did their best to remain anchored. How did they respond to the break-up of the Soviet Union — their nation’s abrupt loss of a major trading partner and symbolic model? And how have they faced one of the greatest challenges posed by globalization — preserving their sense of home and community while engaging with an increasingly connected world?
On Location in Cuba probes these questions. The lens of cinema—defined broadly to include film, video and audiovisual art—permits an analysis of this pivotal moment in the island’s history, this “special period” of accelerated change and great uncertainty.
In the United States, we tend to think that Cuba is on the brink of change. But, in fact, the island has already instigated and assimilated remarkable shifts—the legalization of U.S. currency, the development of tourist infrastructure, the encouragement of entrepreneurial activities and small businesses, and even the Pope’s celebration of Catholic mass in Revolution Square. It’s crucial to acknowledge and examine recent transformations if we are to effectively engage with Cubans in the near future.
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
In a nutshell
Cuba has undergone dramatic changes during the past two decades. As global tides washed over the island in the early 1990s, Cubans did their best to remain anchored. How did they respond to the break-up of the Soviet Union — their nation’s abrupt loss of a major trading partner and symbolic model? And how have they faced one of the greatest challenges posed by globalization — preserving their sense of home and community while engaging with an increasingly connected world?
On Location in Cuba probes these questions. The lens of cinema—defined broadly to include film, video and audiovisual art—permits an analysis of this pivotal moment in the island’s history, this “special period” of accelerated change and great uncertainty.
In the United States, we tend to think that Cuba is on the brink of change. But, in fact, the island has already instigated and assimilated remarkable shifts—the legalization of U.S. currency, the development of tourist infrastructure, the encouragement of entrepreneurial activities and small businesses, and even the Pope’s celebration of Catholic mass in Revolution Square. It’s crucial to acknowledge and examine recent transformations if we are to effectively engage with Cubans in the near future.