‘We are a very resilient people’: in the face of #Trump’s threats, Cuban cinema comes out fighting
With the island back in Washington’s sights, the Screen Cuba festival is taking #UK audiences beyond the #blockade
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/mar/24/cuban-cinema-comes-out-fighting-trump-threats-screen-cuba-festival

from #TheGuardian
March 24, 2026

In the shadow of an imperial hegemon and with severe restrictions on its ability to trade and access resources, #Cuba may appear as an enigma to audiences curious about the type of #cinema that has emerged from such conditions.

The #CubanRevolution of 1959 caused a radical break in the development of the country’s cinema. #Film-making existed before “this moment of effervescence” but was historically an imitation of Hollywood-style film-making, according to Jessica Gordon-Burroughs, a lecturer in Latin American studies at the University of Edinburgh. In contrast, the first decade after the revolution heralded “a very exciting and innovative time, both politically and aesthetically in Cuba”.

#news #politics

Фідель Кастро очолив уряд Куби
https://buymeacoffee.com/valdeloir/vowaneditu

#ФідельКастро #КубинськаРеволюція #ІсторіяКуби #1959Рік #ПолітичнаІсторія
#FidelCastro #CubanRevolution #CubanHistory #ColdWarHistory #1959з

Cuba Must Not Fall!
The survival of Cuba’s socialist project remains one of the most critical holdouts against hemispheric domination, making its defense a global litmus test for sovereignty.
https://resumen-english.org/2026/02/cuba-must-not-fall/

from #ResumenLatinoamericano
by Isaac Saney
Feb 7, 2026

The struggle to defend the #CubanRevolution—to preserve #Cuba’s independence, sovereignty, and right to self-determination—is not simply the struggle of a small #Caribbean nation resisting a powerful neighbour. Nor is it confined to the geographical contours of an island of eleven million people. It is, rather, a struggle with profound and incalculable consequences for #LatinAmerica, the Caribbean, and the global fight for justice, human dignity, and the right of peoples to live free from imperialist diktat.

...Cuba asserted the radical proposition that a small, formerly colonized country could chart its own path, control its own resources, and prioritize social justice over foreign capital.

#News #politics

Before Castro's successful #CubanRevolution, life for the masses was grim under dictator Batista, who welcomed US mafia, other gangsters to Havana to run casinos, hotels.

Castro brought em excellent healthcare, education, gender & racial equality, even a world class ballet company & more despite a crippling US-led #SugarEmbargo.

But sugar was #Cuba's main export & despite conducting studies into other ways to counter the hit to the economy - incl exploring for
https://www.ctpost.com/news/world/article/us-announces-6m-in-aid-for-cuba-as-island-s-21336380.php
1

Capitalist exploitation of Cuba by the United States and Fulgencio Batista (US puppet leader of Cuba) before the Cuban Revolution.

#cubanrevolution
#fulgenciobatista
#antiimperialism
#anticolonialism
#cheguevara
#usempire

Telex from Cuba is the 2008 debut novel by writer Rachel Kushner. The novel follows a group of anglo-expatriates living in Cuba during the Cuban Revolution and was loosely based on Kushner's mother's experience growing up in Cuba on territory occupied by the United Fruit Company. - Wikipedia

I found this much harder to get into than Creation Lake as it lacked a central character, but it was worth the effort, and now know more about Cuba before the revolution, at least from the point of view of the privileged Americans working and living there.

#RachelKushner #Novels #Reading #Cuba #Batista #Castro #CubanRevolution