A low cost eight lane highway for “Fast and Furious”?

source El Surtidor

translation Cuba _Network in Defense of Humanity

Perhaps in the near future the spectacular cars of the saga “Fast and Furious” with their real and imaginary drivers supported by the paraphernalia of special effects and technical supports that are always present in the films of this series, together with the main protagonist, Vin Diesel and other stars, who will come to the country and see the Cuban roads and cities offering joy to the public in favor of the genre in which the script is the pretext for the cars to act.

In this manner we can foresee the probable entrance to Cuba in the advance of the market of the most important industry of globalized entertainment willing to take the last plaza in the western world that is still not available for the extended reproductions of its benefits, in products that sleep the society to have a post modern capitalism.This project announced by the producers of the films may be possible through the recent flexibility of the blockade applied by the US administration that allows, including in Cuba for the destinations of US filmmakers to join, also as counterparts, those businesses for independent producers, artists and local film experts.

Information, reproduced in our media early in January announced the issues of “Comic Book, Universal Pictures, pending the governments of the US and Cuba to approve the filming of Fast and Furious 8 in Cuba.
It would not be the first time that the action of the saga moves to exotic places, such as in Dubai with Fast and Furious 7 or Brazil with Fast and Furious 5,

I can also inform of the successful US series, House of Lies, that deals with the adventures of an organization dedicated to publicity campaigns and affairs of large corporations that would not be the first to obtain permission from the government to film in the Island.

House of Lies

The advertisements are accompanied by the perception of the US counterparts on the advantages of the country, its natural beauty, its infrastructure, its security and low costs that implied operation in a country where they would have to pay below the standards of food and board and, above all, work trained in the films schools and through the intuitional system of the “mythical Cuban Film Industry”.

Arturo Arango, noted writer and film script writer explained in his article “A low cost meal” that appeared in the magazine On Cuba on January 18 deals with the background of the above mentioned projects and defines the danger awaiting Cuban films of becoming an “enormous factory: landscapes, technicians, citizen security and worker who can receive low pay... is what we can offer (…).

He also explains “cultural colonialism must be opposed by a resistance for which right now, the country is not well prepared. The advantages of Cuba for filming television series or films from Hollywood and other hegemonic US centers could be better if we had a legal body to protect it (…).

And he concludes What would happen with distribution and film showings, once the blockade is lifted and trade relations achieve this status we call “normality? If Hollywood imposes its productions in the screens of the entire planet few countries will be able to defend the established quotas of national films Then would we have to anticipate this moment and seek for formulas to prevent diversity from disappearing in the film halls, of television and others that are still alternatives?

I will only add to what Arango has written of the danger for it to occur; it also requires the mobilization and aware apathy or not of officials, and national creators in face of the challenge that approaches us in “normal” relations between Cuba and the United States and those who through omission who can hinder the necessary changes and the others who with enthusiasm search for the roads to our suicide as an independent nation.

The current crossroads clearly demonstrates, if it needs to be defined now, what place leads to the proposals who bank on institutional disarming of culture and for example the future of the “mythical ICAIC” as a simple apparatus of logistics and custodian of cultural regulations granting the function of arbiters of resolutions and much less able to defend the national interests of culture against the attacks of Imperial hegemony that threatens to colonize us.

That is the real debate beyond assistance to the country of excellent spectacles of enjoyment of the automotive circus of “Fast and Furious” on our National Highway or we will see walking along the streets of
Old Havana the dazzling professionals of the “House of Lies”.

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