19/03/2021 – 7:36 AM (GMT-4)
The film critic of Granma, René Pérez Betancourt, has attacked Thursday from the body of the Central Committee of the Communist Party against Planted, the film by Cuban exiled director Lilo Villaplana, which deals with the history of the political prisoners of Castroism who, from the 1960s onwards, refused to wear the regulatory uniform and asked to be recognized as political prisoners.
The film’s premiere at the Miami Film Festival, where he received the audience award, and also in Havana, where she has appeared in various headquarters of human rights activists, she has achieved an impact that the official press would not ignore.
In the note published by Granma, Pérez Betancourt qualifies Planted of ‘bodrio’ and affirms that he is joining ‘the subversive campaign against Cuba, presenting a propaganda and one-dimensional view of the subject they are dealing with, without referring to the causes – not some of them criminal – that these men have been led to prison. “
The critic also compares the film to a production by Andy García and Guillermo Cabrera Infante The lost city (released in 2005), which he describes as “infamous,” repeating Vilaplana’s criticism of the Miami Film Festival for not attaching enough importance to the film.
“Within 24 hours, the film was posted on social networks, something unusual for a premiere film, and expensive, which should be presented at festivals around the world to try to sell and recover money,” added Pérez Betancourt. recent complaints from his director about this fact, which has affected him financially
The official critic also refers to “ the filmmakers’ vain dream of thinking they billed a magnum opus capable of – as they stated – responding to what was exposed in The Wasp Network (Olivier Assayas, 2019), a film that outraged them by presenting true heroes who were against the commandments of the empire. “
About the devastating movie reviews it received The Wasp NetworkPérez Betancourt does not say a word.
The film PlantedMeanwhile, it has provoked emotional reactions among Cubans on the island and in exile.
Young people like the Cuban activist Lázaro Mireles, or the chess player Lázaro Bruzón has confessed to be shocked by the dramatic dimension of the events narrated by the film, whose script was directed by Ángel Santiesteban, Juan Manuel Cao and the director himself.
“I had already seen a number of documentaries on this subject, but the film is on a different level. What value do those men have when they face so much injustice and violence against them. They live and leave at the end to validate every argument “, Bruzón wrote in a Facebook post
From the island, scientist and activist Oscar Casanella recently also thanked Lilo Vilaplana, Ángel Santiesteban and all the people who contributed to the making of this feature film.
“Above all, thanks to those heroes who were political prisoners in the years when political repression was brutal and there was no internet or a way to get information from Cuba. Thanks to those who never gave in, who inspired many other Cubans with their example. the fight for Cuba’s freedom continues, ”Casanella stressed on social media.