Eduardo del Llano’s ‘Epic’

Eduardo del Llano's 'Epic' / 14ymedio, Luz Escobar
Posted on January 10, 2016

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, 10 January 2016 – A Cuban jaded in the cynicism
of the present travels back in time to the year 1960 searching for the
lost epic. The story of someone who wants to regain the enthusiasm
around a social project that turned into something very different from
the dream, will move and amuse those who see the latest short film
directed by Eduardo del Llano.

Epic is a touching portrait of some people's disappointment and others'
Utopia, blending the absurd, science fiction and drama. Its director,
scriptwriter and principal architect talks with 14ymedio about his
latest film "creature" and other demons of filmmaking.

Escobar. With your latest short film Epic are you returning to science
fiction?

Del Llano. In Epic science fiction is like an anomalous element that
allows me to make contact between a Cuban of today and another from the
sixties. This latter is also a Cuban who is real and very important in
Cuban culture, a Cuban who existed just at that moment when everything
was epic, when everyone believed in the Utopia, and it seemed like
everything would turn out well. The expectations generated in
contrasting the Utopia with the actual result, obviously would have been
impossible in a strictly realistic narrative.

The idea was to be able to present, with a more or less logical premise
– one that allows the viewer to suspend disbelief – a Cuban of the
present and another from the past, both situated on the two extremes of
the chain, not the food chain but the utopian ideological chain.

Escobar. Epic was presented at the last Havana Film Festival. Will it go
into regular screenings in the coming months?

Del Llano. I don't know if will be scheduled, but I don't much care. For
me, it was very important that it was shown in the last Festival,
although they gave me the worst possible times. At the Chaplin Theater,
on a Sunday at ten in the morning, and, even worse than that, at the
Infanta multiplex on Saturday at half an hour past midnight. Even I
didn't go there…

Escobar. How did the audience react?

Del Llano. People had a kind of catharsis. When it ended they clapped
and even shouted "Bravo!"

Escobar. Surely this short will circulate in the weekly packet. How do
you deal with piracy?

Del Llano. It has been a problem. I think I know pretty well how to make
a movie up to the moment it ends, but I don't have the slightest idea
what to do with it then. Internally, I have no problems with the packet,
I think it's the Cuban equivalent of any broadcaster in the world. Where
there is everything from the most ridiculous like Case Closed, to the
highest quality Scandinavia cinema.

Escobar. Sex Machine Productions is a pioneer among independent
producers. How has it managed to survive despite having no legal
recognition?

Del Llano. Sex Machine Productions was a gentleman's agreement between
Frank Delgado, Luis Alberto Garcia and Nestor Jimenez. We agreed that we
would do things like this as a cooperative, where I pay what I can and
if at some point we hit it big and earn a lot of money, it will be
distributed based on determined percentages that we adjust at that time,
but it is not a producer in and of itself.

Sex Machine Productions is me. There are shorts where the character of
Nicanor* does not appear, nor is there Frank's music, nor do Luis
Alberto or Nestor act in it, but it comes out under the same logo.

Escobar. You have feature films and many shorts. In what format do you
feel more comfortable?

Del Llano. At one time I said that would only make shorts, not out of
conviction, but because I felt comfortable with the shorts. Even my two
feature films are not very long, one is 61 minutes and the other 73 minutes.

Escobar. What genre do you prefer?

Del Llano. I always thought – and I'm paying for it firsthand – that in
Cuban cinema we should have science fiction, terror, erotica. I took the
risk and now I'm coming up against the idea that, "and now this
movie doesn't seem Cuban because there are no prostitutes and no salsa
music."

Escobar. Are you a part of the group of filmmakers that is promoting a
new Film Law, the so-called G-20 group?

Del Llano. There are a lot of misconceptions about what the G-20 is. We
are a gathering of filmmakers where there are no directors, no art
directors, no photography directors, and we meet as if as we are going
to put fifty or sixty people to the task of writing a text, we choose a
kind a "central committee" so there is an executive arm.

If at a meeting there is an agreement to draft a document, they are
responsible for writing it. This is the G-20, but it is not "20
filmmakers fighting for a Film Law in Cuba," because we are much more
than that. Nor are we always the same people, although there are faces
that remain, out of respect and visibility, which is the case with
Fernando Perez.

Escobar. What have you achieved with your demands?

Del Llano. From the beginning we have tried to work with what is
established, because it is about a law, not about a revolt. We have
tried to fit it into the legislation that already exists, but also to
start expanding it. At the first meetings there were representatives
from the Ministry of Culture, I don't know if there was also anyone from
the Cuban Writers and Artists Union (UNEAC), but they don't come
anymore. I feel like they are waiting for us to get tired.

The October meeting last year ended with the adoption of a draft Film
Law. The ball is now in their court.

Escobar. And so what's missing?

Del Llano. What's missing is someone who comes along and says, "this
isn't the way to do this and this"… to see it through the eyes of the
censor, of the other side. In this sense we are a little stagnant, which
doesn't mean we are going to give up. We are not going to stop
insisting, but we see no response.

Escobar. The last meeting was fraught with tension…

Del Llano. Hopefully not, but I suspect that the last meeting where the
incident occurred with Eliecer Avila, they are going to use that to say,
"See what happens when you meet," and then throw some more shit on is. I
Am not aware that it is going to be like this, but I suspect it.

The same attitude of ejecting someone from a gathering because they are
considered "counterrevolutionary" is as if they were some Saint Benedict
that you can't get rid of, as if they were synonymous with a
provocateur. Eliecer was sitting behind me and remained silent the whole
time. Even when the issue came up of throwing him out.

Then, indeed, ICACI and UNEAC appeared saying, "we are revolutionary
filmmakers." So they did respond to this. What worries me is that the
ICAIC, which the whole time has said it is on our side, reacted with
this level of intolerance against someone who thinks differently.

Escobar. What projects are you working on?

Del Llano. What I have in hand are fake documentaries. I really like
this format that few in Cuba have done. I did The Truth About G2 [Cuba's
State intelligence service], and the things that I have in mind come
from that. For example, I published a novel last year and when Luis
Alberto Garcia read it he said to me, "We have to make this novel into a
movie." For now it would be hard to do that because it requires an
enormous budget.

It is titled Bonsai and is about a town in Pinar del Rio which is
isolated from the rest of Cuba and there they build communism, but by
chance. Even the things they do they don't do well, but it comes out
fine, thanks to chance. They construct a viable communism, with freedom,
with democracy, with positive economic results, like it should have
been, where everyone in the world does well.

I would love to film that story.

*Translator's note: Nicanor O'Donnell, played by Luis Alberto Garcia, is
the "anti-hero" character in several of Del Llano's films. Read more
here. The films are on YouTube, in Spanish

Source: Eduardo del Llano's 'Epic' / 14ymedio, Luz Escobar | Translating
Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/eduardo-del-llanos-epic-14ymedio-luz-escobar/