On her book On Location in Cuba: Street Filmmaking during Times of Transition
Cover Interview of July 05, 2009
Lastly
Very little attention has been paid to Cuba’s film production in recent years – and even less to the audiovisual activity by a new generation of artists mediating national and trans-national forces. Given all the changes that have occurred in Cuba over the past two decades—including the erosion of state hegemony, the rapid expansion of the public sphere, the engagement with global markets, and the reconfiguration of Cuban identity—there is a pressing need to examine the dramatic transformation of island filmmaking. On Location in Cuba represents the first book-length study in any language to interrogate the island’s changing audiovisual landscape so as to make sense of these larger shifts. As these audiovisual artists navigate the waters between a state-controlled system and a market mechanism, they provide us with a window through which to view an island in flux.
[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
Lastly
Very little attention has been paid to Cuba’s film production in recent years – and even less to the audiovisual activity by a new generation of artists mediating national and trans-national forces. Given all the changes that have occurred in Cuba over the past two decades—including the erosion of state hegemony, the rapid expansion of the public sphere, the engagement with global markets, and the reconfiguration of Cuban identity—there is a pressing need to examine the dramatic transformation of island filmmaking. On Location in Cuba represents the first book-length study in any language to interrogate the island’s changing audiovisual landscape so as to make sense of these larger shifts. As these audiovisual artists navigate the waters between a state-controlled system and a market mechanism, they provide us with a window through which to view an island in flux.
© 2009 Ann Stock