13/03/2021 – 7:03 AM (GMT-4)
The film Planted, from Cuban director Lilo Vilaplana, officially premiered this Friday in Havana and Miami as part of the film festival’s activities in that South Florida city.
“The culture and the country are winning,” said former political prisoner Ángel Santiesteban, one of the film’s screenwriters, from the Cuban capital after a group of activists hosted the premiere.
Santiesteban recalled that thanks to the producers’ permission, the audiovisual material could be distributed throughout Cuba and thus “break the censorship”.
“I think this film will help to open eyes, create awareness, to think. I think it is a lesson for the criminals themselves, who have to see themselves in this mirror and refuse to oppress the citizens who want freedom. for Cuba, ”he added Santiesteban.
For his part, the film’s director, Vilaplana, called the channel Telemundo 51 that thanks to the support of Cuban opponents and activists in various parts of the national geography, it would be possible to enjoy the material, which tells the experiences of several Cuban political prisoners who decided to ‘stand up’ and deny the forced labor regime to which they were subjected as part of a re-education plan.
Some of the protagonists of those events, from whom the film was inspired, were invited to the Miami premiere and emphasized the importance of an audiovisual work of this type.
“We have been waiting for this for a long time because of the sacrifice we made as political prisoners in Cuba and so that the whole world knows what we went through,” said one of the guests at the premiere.
For their part, some of the young actors who brought the characters in Plantados to life said that this type of work could help tell some of the story that was “misreported” on the island.
From March 5th the Miami Film Festival will take place, Competition where the audiovisual material was released, which will be shown in theaters in the United States from the age of 26.
In statements to CiberCuba, the director Lilo Vilaplana He said that this project is not of today, but goes back a quarter of a century ago with several former inmates and Cuban businessman Leopoldo Fernández Pujals, nephew of José Pujals Mederos, who has served 27 years in political prison.
“They have made many attempts to tell a film about their experience as planted prisoners,” admitted Vilaplana. “ The script could not remain in the anecdote, we had to update the conflict, which is why the story that Plantados tells begins today, in Miami, a former political prisoner accidentally recognizes one of the officers who tortured them in prison. , decides to follow him and begins a stormy debate between revenge and justice, as we learn afterwards about the events that characterized the political prison, focusing on the history of those planted in the Cuban political prison. “
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