Release Year: 2005
Duration: 56 min
Related: History, International, Politics
In 1963 & 1964 Robert Carl Cohen became the first US filmmaker authorized by both the US State Dept. & Cuban Foreign Ministry to film the daily lives of upper, middle and lower economic-class Cubans. Returning to the US, Cohen interviewed an upper class exile who, his aged parents remaining in Cuba, requested anonymity. The film’s production had to overcome obstacles such as Kodak’s selling the Producer defective raw stock & the loss of the work print from an insured Railway Express shipment. Its 1965 screening as “Three Faces of Cuba” on over 100 National Educational TV (NET) affiliated stations led to violent protests by anti-Castro exiles, hearings before federal agencies, & non-inclusion by the NET in the usual distribution of its programs to the schools. Despite having permits from both the State & Treasury Depts., Cohen’s 1963 through 1971 tax returns were audited by the Internal Revenue Service; which revealed no liability. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) files released in 1975 reveal possible CIA influence in NET’s refusal to distribute the film. THREE CUBANS provides one of the best documentations of the early effects of Castro’s revolution on the people of Cuba. AUDIENCE: Concerned Citizens, Students of History, Latin American Affairs, Social Psychology, International Relations, Sociology, Political Science, Communism.
Click on the title of this post to watch the movie. H/T to Joseito!