Juan Pin Vilar: Since my childhood? Well, I have been the child who has gone to television the most times, because my parents worked there, and we lived around the corner from the station. It was the time of Goar Mestre, which had nine radio stations and seven channels. In the 1930s, when very few people had watches, he invented Radio Reloj, a brilliant idea, a station that only played announcements, short news, and the time, minute by minute. Dad came in at the beginning of the ’50s, he was a cultured man, a great journalist who could write a text in English while he was talking to you. I was trained in that environment. But later, in 1959, Goar Mestre had to leave the country.
JPV: He was changing the nation culturally, through his media. Well, later I made press, series, TV shows, short films, and a documentary about Pablo Milanés’ experience in a work camp. In the ’60s, religious people, rockers and homosexuals were sent to labor camps. Pablo was nothing like that, but, since he was not a member of any entity sponsored by the government, they applied the Law of the Vago to him. That documentary is prohibited. Well, I also lived in Mexico.
Q.: And when did you return to Cuba?
JPV.: But I never left Cuba! I am like Aníbal Troilo, when he recites that beautiful gloss that is heard at the end of “Sur”, by Pino Solanas: “Some say that I left my neighborhood. But when? When, if ever, I’m always coming back!”
Q.: Since you mention it, Fito Páez also acts in “Sur”. Is it true, as they say there, that you did not know rock in Spanish? The Teen Tops, The Iracundos, The Cats, any of that?
JPV: We only knew the rock that the North American stations played, and that we listened to secretly. The government approved, at most, the pop that came from Spain, during the time of Generalissimo Franco. That’s what stayed with us. Of course, many Cuban musicians knew the songs of Spinetta, by Charly García, but that did not reach the general public. For this reason, Cuba being a great musical power, we have excellent jazz, classical, folklore, and melodic performers, but we do not have rockers. Luckily we don’t have reggaeton musicians either, that vandalization of universal culture. ‘
Q: Then Fito Páez arrived.
JPV: Pablo, at the head of the Varadero Festival, had an extraordinary project, introducing artists like Rubén Rada and Fito to the public. Of course, the irreverent boy appears, who jumps and takes off his shirt on stage, who has mannered gestures. Imagine him, a rocker, long-haired, probably homosexual, for many he was the image of capitalist decadence.
Q.: “Where is the Varadero Festival going?”, I think the “Gramma” headlined.
JPV: It was good for them to get Pablo out. But Páez gained the affection of Cubans, he returned many times, no one forgets that he went to perform for free during the “special period”, nor does he forget our solidarity when an assailant killed his grandmother, his aunt and another lady, a fact tremendous that brought him down for a long time.
Q.: The documentary tells all that, until the scene arrives in which he talks about the talk he had with the widow of Camilo Cienfuegos (whose death still leaves suspicions) and the conversation he had the next day with several young people, urging them to doubt from the official versions.
JPV: He says that, even if they believe in the regime and defend it, they still have to doubt. And later he talks about the night in which he witnessed the commotion throughout Havana over the execution of four little boys, four poor blacks who wanted to leave the country without permission. Nobody can legitimize this execution. Furthermore, the entire object of the Revolution was to defend the poor blacks. How are they going to kill them? For me, that was evidence that Fidel had lost his mind, he was already decrepit.
Q: You already suspected it.
JPV: I explain. In other times, Monte Street was famous, with its stained glass windows, its boutiques. There is a famous photo from 1958, where you can see the stained glass windows, and below them people sleeping on the floor. One night the Jesuits from the Loyola Center invited me to present some documentaries, and when I walked out on that street, well, it was almost the same photo, people sleeping on the floor, but without stained glass. I was shocked, that was like an epiphany. Because the world has gotten worse, there are more reasons to make a Revolution, but not like this one. And in the documentary Fito says something else, about the future of the island, right in the final scene, which I think is where the authorities saw something that decided them to censor the film. Even more, they held a “round table” on television to say that Fito had been deceived, which is why he said those things.
Q: And now?
JPV: The good thing is that the censorship provoked a reaction from many people, many artists, who in an open letter complained about that and many other banned films. We’ll see what happens.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
