An exclusive screening of Pavel Giroud‘s astonishing 2022 documentary exploring aspects of Cuba’s past that reverberate in its present, such as the lack of freedom of expression and the struggles faced by writers and artists. The film unearths the 1971 notorious case of Cuban poet Heberto Padilla, arrested by state security and accused of counterrevolutionary. His imprisonment mobilized the intellectual vanguard of the entire world, who addressed a letter to Fidel Castro, with whom they had previously sympathized, demanding freedom for the poet. Faced with international pressure, the Cuban government forced him to incriminate himself in the purest Stalinist style, accusing many of his colleagues, including his wife, of the same crime. The writer’s filmed mea culpa, shown to the public for the first time, is punctuated by interventions from Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jorge Edwards, Carlos Fuentes and Fidel Castro.
Mr. Giroud will be presented by Perla Rozencvaig, head of the CCCNY Cinema Program, who will moderate a Q&A with the director after the screening.
INSTITUTO CERVANTES
211 E 49th St, bet. 2nd & 3rd Aves., NYC
FREE ADMISSION
RSVP AT: https://FilmCasoPadillaApril2.eventbrite.com
Pavel Giroud is an award-winning Cuban filmmaker based in Madrid. He graduated in design from Havana’s Instituto Superior de Diseño in 1994, and also attended the Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión de San Antonio de los Baños. His installations caught the attention of the advertising business in Cuba in the nineties, where he became director of commercials. However, encouraged by those who considered him a gifted storyteller, he decided to explore the art of cinema and began to make short films. His filmography includes La edad de la peseta (The Silly Age), a bittersweet coming of age, winner for Best Cuban Film and nominated for the Goya Awards for best Latin American film; the critically acclaimed Omerta, the story of the bodyguard of a famous gangster who left Cuba after 1959, released in 2008; and El acompañante (The Companion), from 2016, which conveys how art can be a great ally when treating HIV/AIDS. His music documentary Playing Lecuona with Chucho Valdés and Dagoberto Rodríguez was presented at the San Sebastián and Rome Film Festivals. In El caso Padilla (The Padilla Affair), 2022, Giroud unearths a stunning 50-year-old archival footage to give the viewer a peek into a watershed moment in the Cuban Revolution. The documentary won Best Documentary Award at the Miami Film Festival in 2023, and continues to have successful screenings since its accolades at the Telluride and San Sebastian film festivals. In 2024, Giroud directed the German film Comandante Fritz (General Fritz), a romantic comedy filmed in the Canary Islands. His novel Habana Nostra was published by the Traveler Publishing Group.
Perla Rozencvaig was born in Havana. She holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic Literature from Columbia University, where she taught Latin American Culture and Caribbean Identity. She has also taught languages and Spanish American Literature at Barnard College. Perla is Vice-President of the Cuban Cultural Center of New York, where she directs its Cinema Program. She is also a member of the Academy of Cuban History in Exile (AHCE). Her work as cultural and literary critic and co-editor includes Reinaldo Arenas: Narrativa de transgresión, the first full-length study about the author’s work published from 1967 to 1981, and Reinaldo Arenas: alucinaciones, fantasias y realidad. Her essays on the work of Virgilio Piñera, Severo Sarduy, Zoe Valdés, Juan Rulfo and Jaime Einstein have appeared in journals in the U.S. and abroad.
This event is co-sponsored by Instituto Cervantes
And is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York State Legislature.
With the promotional cooperation of Rialta, 14yMedio and Diario de Cuba
