Miguel Coyula: All Movies All The Time

An Interview with the director of Memories of Overdevelopment

In the same way that good collectors poke around in tiny stores with an expert eye, lovers of the art of the cinema chase down Miguel Coyula. With numerous awards for a rigorous and always growing work, Miguel dazzles us now with Memories of Overdevelopment. To conduct a formal interview, I have searched in the extensive bibliography Miguel’s work has already accumulated, with reference to the prizes he has received. But I do not put myself on the plane of the specialists, and here the protagonist is a cousin, who in his 33 years exhibits a solid career. And the best is yet to come. Being related is pure coincidence.

Regina Coyula: As a child you had a great predisposition to literature. Do you think you’ve reconciled this obsession with the development of your scripts, or do you see it as two independent expressions?

Miguel Coyula: Yes, I think that literature was for lack of anything else, I think if I had had a camera from the beginning perhaps I would have turned to that directly. But I do think that any literary work is adaptable in one way or another to the cinema. If you know the tools of the cinematographic language well and are willing to experiment with them, any adaptation is possible. That is, I have always seen all artistic expression through the view of cinema. And I like writing very much, in fact if I suddenly went blind and couldn’t film any more, I’m sure I would write again.

RC: You started making films informally in early adolescence. Did you already know then that this is what you wanted to do?

MC: It was after my first short film Pyramid (1996) that I knew I couldn’t do anything that would give me more pleasure. From that moment I had no doubts. It was my only chance to build a different universe, entirely as I pleased.

RC: What project do you consider your “coming of age”?

MC: That’s a difficult question. For example, before going to the Film School I made two shorts, Pyramid and Light Valve, which despite their imperfections I consider much better than everything I did in school. When I made them I was in a state of pure intuition. In school, no matter how much you resist it, you involuntarily tend to structure everything, and the films it interests me to make could be described as a subconscious vomiting.

Fortunately, after leaving school I recovered quickly and perhaps that’s why I make movies outside of any institution. My first feature film, Red Cockroaches, is — at the performance level — the first movie where I managed the desired atmosphere, controlling the tools of the language to achieve it. My visual language is undoubtedly already formed there, however the structure of the story is too linear for my taste. It is in Memories of Overdevelopment where I now have a language much more akin to the way I think, in fact the language of the movie is like putting yourself in the character’s head, where every kind of idea, memories, fiction, dreams, documentary, animation all come together, all linked with a montage of associations.

RC: The International School of Cinema of San Antonio de los Baños: what is the positive and negative balance that school left in you?

MC: I learned to use a lot of equipment that I otherwise could not have accessed. And I learned, above all, that I’m not particularly interested in working as a team, that I have no other option than to do the filming and editing of my movies to be able to control every detail to the maximum extent, that I don’t ever want to shoot in 35mm, and that I never want to study in another institution. Of course I’m speaking only for myself and for those who think like me. However, I think that for a great share of the students EICTV is very useful.

RC: Director, screenwriter, director of photography, editor, music director … Are you compelled by the budget or is it a decision to maintain control over the production?

MC: Both, or perhaps if I had money I would have more assistants, but the photography, editing, sound design, I could never give those away. Of course you can’t have assistants if you can’t pay them, maybe that’s a good thing… maybe if I had more money I would be a complete dictator with my team, because when everything’s said and done I’m Cuban and we know how that works. It’s a lucky thing I didn’t go into politics.

RC: What collaboration have you received from ICAIC (Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Arts and Industry) in your career?

MC: Apart from showing my films in their Young Filmmakers Exhibition, I’ve never worked at ICAIC, nor have they ever financed any of my movies.

RC: Memories of Overdevelopment: Don’t you fear being left in the limbo of having made a very “foreign” film for the Cuban public, and a very Cuban film for foreigners?

MC: It’s very true, this, but inevitable. There are filmmakers who make movies to make money and others who do it to show their films at the festivals. I do it because I have no choice, I have to get out what’s inside me. Before “Memories”… all my movies could have been set in any part of the world, they weren’t tied to a reality or a political or social context. With “Memories”… I had the opportunity and the need to talk a little bit about my origins, because it’s the only movie where I was probably going to have the chance to do so.

In fact the movie may be Cuban for a foreign audience, but it’s not the Cuba of the Tropicana, mojitos, jokes, the beach and Cohibas that they want to see. It’s not entertainment. It’s a serious analysis of the effects of a political regime on an individual in the last 50 years, and a lot of people aren’t interested in that. It’s a politically incorrect movie for anyone, regardless of their political position, against all flags, against politics (of the left and the right), religion and consumerism. And people have very little tolerance for this kind of film today.

RC: Memories of Underdevelopment: What are the opportunities to participate in Festivals and to get it in the distribution chain?

MC: There are some festivals, I am going to be traveling a lot this year. There is still no distribution, but I don’t have great expectations. From the beginning I knew it wasn’t an easy film, and we’ll see how that evolves.

RC: What would be the movie you’d like to do?

MC: A film without borders, I’m interested in stories about individuals who don’t fit into society, but with universal conflicts. Mystery interests me greatly, to me it’s essential that a movie have “loose ends,” because as a creator I need to have doubts about the universe I’m creating; if not, I lose interest, and the cinema that interests me to make is the cinema that will continue even after the movie is over. I believe that to be a truly independent filmmaker is a responsibility to make something distinct without any interference from anyone.

RC: Would you accept working on a commercial project?

MC: I would accept work on a project where I had a green light to change everything at will. Which is practically impossible within a traditional structure.

RC: What is your next project?

MC: Blue Heart, a movie on the subject of cloning, and the second part of the trilogy that begins with Red Cockroaches. With it I return back to the subject of taboos, of science fiction, to build an alternative reality.

In Time

Last Saturday they showed the film In time on television, a science fiction movie without aliens and intergalactic warfare: in the future, genetically modified human beings will not use money as a measure of value, they will use time.

In our national movie, the current government bought time by releasing cell phones, by selling computers, by receiving Cuban nationals as guests in hotels. When the effect of such easings dissipated, the discussion of the Guidelines raised the numbers; as they dwindled, the bonsai flexibilization of self-employment appeared, which has kept us so occupied. The time account has grown somewhat by approving loans and grants for housing construction. The tour of the Virgin, the Pope’s visit, and the amnesty that preceded it, have rapidly spun the numbers into the black. Immigration reform remains the ace in the hole for that time when the numbers start blinking red.

So this way, buying time, is how our leaders think to end their days in power. But the movie is not only about the desire to earn hours and minutes. The protagonists, a mixture of Bonnie and Clyde with Robin Hood, rob banks and give away time, so that the precious commodity is no longer manipulated.

Do not read this as an incitement to anything. Seeing the movie, which I liked at lot, I could not avoid the allegory.

July 27 2012

A Coded Editorial

Though a committed atheist, I am of the opinion that the Church must play and will play an important role for change in our country. The publication Espacio Laical (Lay Space) has come to occupy a very important position in the dissemination of ideas and divergent opinions, a remarkable feat in our society. It is an interesting and coveted publication, passed from person to person as Encuentro de la Cultura Cubana (Encounter with Cuban Culture) was in its time. That being said, I would like to focus on Espacio Laical editorial #2-2012.

The editorial appears to have been written as a response to something or someone who goes unmentioned. Although it is good that we know about or are reminded of its efforts on behalf of prisoners and its condemnation of terrible actions from our nation’s recent past, there is ambiguity in the implied subject which leaves anyone not familiar with or not involved in the Church’s accords and disagreements confused. (Monseigneur?) I share and want to be part of the vision of encounter, dialogue and consensus as the basis for a national solution outlined in the text.

If it is true, as claimed, that there is no other social actor as committed to the alternative of positive change in Cuba, it is because the Church has had the advantage of being virtually the only institution outside of government with its own infrastructure. It was here when the 1959 Revolution arrived and does not worry about being accused of receiving funds from foreign sources.

I do not know what threat might lead certain factions to eliminate the Cardinal, but the Church and Ortega himself must understand that it could never come from the opposition. Since it has been outlawed and partly silenced throughout the country, it would not have the necessary means. They should surely watch out instead for those within the party/state apparatus, known as “Talibans,” who do not want change.

As a citizen, I would like to know about the different political projects mentioned. I would like to judge and discern which among them comes closest to my ideas for the country. I am disturbed that this editorial talks about “monitored and joint projects. . . to agendas dictated from outside the country.” Citizen that I am, I can identify with one of those “rapacious minorities” which it mentions tangentially, as if all this information were public and widely known.

Greater clarity would have resulted in a greater “commitment to truth.”

July 25 2012

Glosses

Since I was in the hospital waiting for my mother to undergo a small surgery (as you see, I keep going with hospitals), I had time to read the entire Granma newspaper from Friday, the thickest of the week with its 16 pages.

Page 1

The person in charge of a business is the director.

Ergo, the person in charge of a ministry is its Minister; the person in charge of an institute is its Director; the person in charge of a country is its President.

Pastors for Peace cross the US border with Mexico.

Defying the US blockade for the 23rd time. Either these pastors are really defiant or the blockade is weak!

Page 2

Contract violations impact the direct sale of agricultural products to tourist outlets.

More than 30 million CUC enter the Ministry of Agriculture for these sales, but they later clarify that of 181 production centers that have signed contracts with hotels, only 45 occur in a regular way. 136 are in breach of contract?!

Summer Festival in Jibacoa.

If I am not wrong, this is Rotilla in disguise. [See also.]

Page 3

The North American occupation fed the most spurious racist sentiments and the official press did not hide its complicit stance. (From the speech made by Miguel Barnet on the 100th anniversary of the massacre of the Independientes de Color.)

I do not doubt it, but said today, where in the US a black man has arrived at the Presidency thanks to the fight for civil rights, this sounds as if one simply has to speak badly of the Americans. And anyway, what was the official press of the time?

Page 4

The BCC’s report to Parliament

In the payment system between businesses, they note that balances due and accounts receivable have decreased; it talks about contractual disrespect, but not about the offender’s punishment. Plastic money continues to wait in line and there will be no increase in ATMs.

Challenges of Higher Education.

… conducting ideological political work creatively and with marked intention, to guarantee the formation of highly competent professionals, who are engaged in society and revolutionary principles.

I seem to have heard the same so many times before!

Page 5

Resources and responsibility to prevent water loss

It is already known that an amount of water is lost equal to what the largest reservoir in the country can store. If 16% is lost in pipes, and 20% in the aqueduct, and 22% in homes, I get 60%. Does the State waste the remaining 40%? Now is when they speak about strategy? This is not serious, although I imagine that the people in Santiago are not laughing at this news.

These pages about the meeting of the National Assembly leave me with the feeling that this government has just reached power, having inherited serious problems.

Page 6

The white mulberry, an animal feed option.

Nothing against the white mulberry, but as Lezama would say: this report smells like Oporto.

Page 7 (international)

Ben Alí condemned to life in prison.

Probably the most newsworthy item in the entire newspaper, lost in the small section Direct Feed.

Small spokespeople.

The article criticizes the manipulation of child spokespeople on behalf of the Syrian opposition.

…they are using the natural innocence of a child to win supporters and play with people’s sensibility… It seems that their parents are not worried about sending them to demonstrations… Simply, they end their childhood for their own benefit, cutting their innocence short.

And where was the journalist during the Elián González case? I am not only speaking about Elián, but about the many children that we see haranguing like adults on the Mesa Redonda (Roundtable TV show) and in “anti-imperialistic tribunes.”

Page 8 (international)

About the US elections: informative; I wish they would speak with this breadth about domestic politics.

Obama launches a plan to “control the internet” in case of emergency.

Wow! This piece, taken from Rebelión, reports that the Americans could wind up with Internet like mine? False alarm: after reading the piece, the title is sensationalist.

Pages 10 and 11 (letters to the Editor)

It is too exhausting to try to write about these two pages. I was already tired when I got here. Likewise for the rest, up to page 15, where culture and sports are. I would have changed the great title We Knock Out Japan, referring to the Harlem baseball tournament, for another more modest one in view of the Cuban team’s bad start. On the 16th and final page, I am informed obliquely, knowing the inside world of a saltworks in Guantanamo, why salt in Cuba continues to be rationed.

How good I am for reading the entire Granma, and how good you are for reading this.

Translated by: M. Ouellette

July 23 2012

Without Makeup

Many years ago, under the impression of the tragic circus known as Operation Tribute, I wrote a story called Makeup which appears in the page links on this blog. I was writing for myself although later with a secret vanity I released it, but when things happen like this letter, I feel it made sense:

Dear Regina:

My name is ________ and my wife is Cuban, although she doesn’t want her name to appear out of fear, a fear she can’t manage to exorcise and that only those who live under a regime can understand.

I am just trying to better understand the reality of your country, as a way to be able to better understand my Cuban family, I have found your blog through some friends and for some months have always read it, in complete anonymity (I am a fairly timid person and my behavior on the Internet is consistent with the way I am), enjoying the use you make of words, your intelligence, and your willingness to share, with whomever desires, your daily life.

But only today, July 17, have I gone to your menu bar under “Makeup” and opened it with curiosity. On reading, what initially seemed to be a story, my heart started to pound. I called my wife and we have read your story. You have written, with the magical capacity with which one writes on a rose petal, the most heartbreaking and sad moment in the life of my sister-in-law.

My wife’s older sister, who lost her partner and the father of her son in a battle of the war in Angola. She is an excellent person, marvelous and I cherish having her as family, but a terrible sadness lives in her heart. The sadness of a woman who can never again kiss the lips of her beloved. The sadness of a mother who cannot put her son in the arms of his father.

I thank you, humbly and with all my heart, for such a beautiful tribute.

Thank you for all you do.

I hope and desire that Cuba can be a democratic and peaceful nation.

Feel free to make our appreciation public.

July 20 2012

A Science Fiction Story

Seven years after the massive injection of new equipment for urban transport, the familiar scene repeats itself: seeing the buses pass without stopping at full stops where you can wait for more than an hour.

It was expected that the massive replacement of the fleet required, in turn, the spare parts and equipment to replace what was broken or worn out over time, as happens with battery and tires. That passenger transport hasn’t ceased to be overcrowded and in bad condition. The same thing happens with shock absorbers, suspensions.

The reality has been to rob Peter to pay Paul. Today the buses pile up in the bus terminals, out of service for lack of parts. Once again it has to reach a crisis point to take emergency measures.

The Minister of Transport, very serious, has provided the solution: Old Soviet-era trucks, experts in wasting fuel and polluting the air, will be equipped with a container for passengers. Semi-bus, semi-solution to semi-transport passengers. This is the summer we have ahead.

I found this little gem (I’m not saying if the Internet is considered a threat). The bold is mine.

 Transport in the future tense

By Nuria Barbosa Leon, journalist of Radio Progreso and Radio Havana Cuba

In December 2006, Transport Minister Jorge Luis Sierra, presented critically to Parliament the major causes in the deterioration of the available public transport. The blockade was number one, and then the deficiencies in the organization of the sector’s leadership; an inadequate technical assurance system for vehicle maintenance; lack of spare parts; labor indiscipline and incompetent officials; high labor turnover; decapitalization of buses; deterioration of infrastructure in the workshops; little financial assurance to meet the costs of replacement and maintenance, and inability to organize and plan accordingly.

There was surprise in the Cuban population when he mentioned as a recuperative measure the purchase of 200 articulated buses manufactured in China, 50 Mercedes Benz made purchased second hand, and another 344 for school buses.

With regards to investments he spoke over 150 million dollars used in the recovery of locomotives, more than 80 million for the repair of railways, more than one billion dedicated to the repair of over 300 bridges, highways and roads.

Many were skeptical and did not believe in the commitment of senior management of the country to solve the problems. But by March 2007 in the annual accounting, the Ministry reported the acquisition of over a thousand Yutong buses, 12 Chinese locomotives, the construction of two catamarans in Santiago de Cuba with capacity for 237 passengers; 123 tractor trailers, and 130 cargo cranes.

On that date they had already repaired 500 trucks, 96 locomotives, 2,847 rail cars, 12 tugboats, seven barges, six dry cargo bulk carriers and three grain carries; they had purchased 2,100 tonnes of long welded rail and restarted the production of sleepers in Villa Clara.

Still, at this time, what has been implemented is insufficient and there is not a sense of visible changes.

In October of 2007 the steps taken by the Ministry of Transport were explained to the people one more time. There it was mentioned that more than 1,500 buses went into operation, and others were purchased second hand, and circulating in the streets of the capital were 343 new Yutong buses, of which 285 were in Havana and 40 in Santiago de Cuba.

Some $ 3.2 million was spent to restore rail cars. They also acquired 200 new rail coaches for domestic trains and 19 locomotives, which would come into circulation in the second half of 2008 up to 2010, at a cost of $ 150 million.

They also said on the television show that in 2007 they received containers, 100 new locomotives, 100 silos, 100 general cargo containers, 1,900 trucks and 200 fuel tanks. Also planned and executed was the acquisition of over 100 locomotives, 3,000 freight cars, barges, coasters, trailers and trucks.

Given that in March 2008 the price of oil already exceeded $100 a barrel, recovery in the  transport sector in Cuba can only be possible with a correct policy of saving and maximizing cargo capacities. Work is also needed in internal reorganization, the retaining personnel and improvements in efficiency through effective control, discipline and the attention of workers.

Today traveling the streets of the capital are new bus routes — including empty seats — comfortable, well ventilated, piped in radio or recorded music, a microphone for the drivers, and wait times of no more than 10 minutes at the stops, and although it all seems like science fiction, the fares have not been increased.

It is important to educate the public and the crews on every bus to take care of the equipment, and greater penalties, judicial and moral, should be applied to everything that threatens the survival of this equipment.

The full recovery of transport is not yet complete, but the winds are favorable, only socialism is capable of dealing with a problem, no matter how critical it is, and bringing together the unity of its forces to fix it. There was no need for privatization, or handing over the resources of the people to the monopolies. Instead, a state strategy, designed and well formulated, that can be the light for the advancement of society.

To conclude, a moral: Many hands make light work.

The journalist Nuria stumbled in her work: It was just a science fiction story.

July 19 2012

Post-Castro Democracy?

Will a change bring us democracy? Change is a process, although some people don’t even see a leaf move. But where that change will take us is unknown, and when I see our General-President visiting Vietnam, China and Russia, I feel an involuntary shudder.

The only thing left of socialist Asians is the name. There’s a lot of rough capitalism, you never hear about the dictatorship of the proletariat there; the dictatorship is of the only party, quite pragmatic, that tells its citizens: Enrich yourself if you can, let me take care of politics. They reprimand their dissidents in a low profile way and everyone’s content.

The Russians “took off the mask” a while ago, but as they are now anxious to regain hegemony and oppose the United States and, commonly, the enemies of my enemies are my friends. Or my allies, but perhaps it’s best not to exaggerate.

And meanwhile, what’s happening at home?  It’s like The Silent Comedy: the Keystone Cops watch the front door while the thieves slip away with the loot out the back. Here Marino Murillo with his economy of stunting the bonsai of private enterprise so it doesn’t grow, while the managers, directors and all the diverse fauna collect all the wealth for the “day after,” and the most impatient for right now, but they keep it elsewhere.

“Our working people” as the official propaganda loves to say, are conditioned by the manipulation of information. They’ve been inculcated with a fear of change, in that their situation always worsens. Lately when I travel by bus, in taxis, hitchhiking, I’ve talked with doctors, nurses, technicians, patients and their attendants, legal and illegal vendors; I’ve felt the exhaustion before an emergency situation that for most of them is their whole life, but I have also felt a caution bordering on fear to name who is responsible, or to verbalize the desire for change. No one had what used to be known as “a combative attitude,” nor did I ever stumble on some believer in Raul’s reforms, those who would, with the enthusiasm of the first days, say the same things now.

It seems I’m getting away from the theme of democracy, but democracy is not created by spontaneous generation. People will not have the capacity to make a spontaneous social demand their own, people who will believe any mobilization to be sterile, people who will feel disposed to break the law for economic advantages but not for political improvements.

I don’t like it but that’s what I see. Therefore, the stronghold of values that may exist in the family, in civil society, in certain schools or work places, is frankly a disadvantage with this morality of survival more suitable for the postwar period, than for building a better society.

I return to my original preoccupation. In China or Russia there will be change, but not democracy. But there’s always the imponderable.

July 16 2012

The Elevator and the Wheelchair

The other day in the hospital, after waiting fifteen minutes for an elevator to take my husband to the medical offices on the top floor of the building, a man who was pushing someone I assume was his mother in a wheelchair, was prevented from getting on the elevator although there was ample space, because no wheelchairs are permitted.

We got onto the elevator when it was on its way up and the elevator operator called on the phone so that the person in the wheelchair could be picked up, but the “specialized” elevator was detained on another floor waiting for another patient. On the way down, the elevator stopped once more on the floor where we had been and the “solution” was to stand the patient up and to fold the wheelchair — everything being done as a favor and with the operator’s explanation that she could be reprimanded.

My husband got excited because the reason for a hospital is to care for the infirm and the lady had been waiting for nearly half an hour; he surmised that if the conditions which led to a given policy changed, then the policy also had to change. I was giving him discreet signs — touching him with my foot and jabbing him with my elbow.

The gentleman pushing the his mother’s wheelchair excused the operator, who had left them stranded, and effusively thanked her for agreeing to transport them. The submissiveness of accepting any measure is not merely something of hospitals, but a national syndrome.

Translated by: Maria Montoto

July 14 2012

To Travel or Not to Travel

I have curiously followed the debate within the exiled community about traveling to Cuba as soon as you receive legal status in North America, after having received the status of potential political victim. This shows me two things: that Cubans have privileges and they take advantage of them, and that the world has changed since the time of the approval of the famous law.

I wasn’t thinking about the David Rivera* changes, however, that have their community divided with the project. I was thinking that the Cuban government just issued a conspiratorial wink with certain provisions which eliminate the “mules,” a reason that became increasingly common to come back to visit Cuba.

But this is an anecdote, told with that triviality that people already know me by. The politician will follow with his politics and we’ll be separated by 45 minutes of the most expensive airplanes there are. To travel or not to travel is a sentimental and ethical dilemma.

*Translator’s note: David Rivera is a U.S. Congressman from Florida who has proposed legislation that would revoke the residency status of any Cuban who has claimed political asylum in the U.S. and then travels back to Cuba. His bill has no co-sponsors.

Translated by: Michelle Eddy

July 13 2012

A Stronghold of Medical Power

Ameijeiras Brothers Hospital in Havana. Source: Flickr

The phrase was spontaneous; Ameijeiras Brothers Hospital is one of the last bastions of medical power. My husband is a patient there and I go every day. Unlike other hospitals, I don’t have to “move there” bringing my own bedding, fan, light bulbs, cleaning supplies and of course the food; barely a bucket for those who would prefer to bathe in hot water.

The building is clean and air-conditioned, the rooms have televisions and telephones, the staff is friendly, the doctors there seem real doctors with long-sleeved coats and ties. The food is not very varied, but decent and served in earthenware dishes, not the infamous tin trays. The operation isn’t the best with regards to the lack of elevators in service, serious in a hospital of 25 floors, but this is just a nitpick after so many benefits.

So yes, what should be the norm is the exception. And I’m not talking about the television and telephone. Nor even the air conditioning.

July 12 2012