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Logline
Director Pavel Giroud combines disturbing footage that remained under lock and key for many years with other archival material to create a gripping documentary.
Havana in the spring of 1971. The poet Heberto Padilla has just been released from prison. At a meeting of the Cuban Writers' Guild, he gives a speech in which he declares himself to be a counterrevolutionary agent and accuses many of his colleagues in attendance, including his own wife, of having betrayed the revolution. For this documentary, Pavel Giro has for the first time made accessible from an undisclosed source the spectacular archival footage, kept under lock and key by state security for over 50 years, of an evening that changed the history of the Cuban Revolution and freedom of expression in Latin America like no other.
Meet the director
Pavel Giroud
Pavel Giroud, born in 1973, is a Cuban director who now lives in Madrid. He studied design at the Instituto Superior de Diseño and was initially a designer and art director for films and theater productions, as well as a video artist. Giroud's first feature film, LA EDAD DE LA PESETA (2006), premiered in Toronto, was Cuba's entry for the international Oscar and received several international awards. In 2020, the film was also listed by the Cinemateca de Cuba as one of ten films in the history of Cuban cinema with the best cinematography and art direction. In 2007, Giroud presented OMERTÀ, a film noir that also received several awards. PLAYING LECUONA (2014), about Cuban musician Ernesto Lecuona, received the award for best documentary at the Montréal Film Festival. It was followed by the feature film THE COMPANION (2015), another entry of Cuba's for the international Oscar. EL CASO PADILLA (2022) had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival.