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Film about Flight of Cubans to America Features UCF Historian, Poet
by Zenaida Gonzalez Kotala (407-823-6120, zkotala@mail.ucf.edu)
May 17, 2006 -- The plight of the Cubans who fled Fidel Castro's regime in waves beginning in 1959 is the topic of a new documentary film that features the contributions of a historian and a poet from the University of Central Florida.
"Lejos de la Isla" ("Far from the Island") was a labor of love for first-generation Cuban-American and New Jersey native L.E. Salas, 26, who reached out to the two UCF professors to help him with the film. It will debut in Union City, N.J., on Saturday, May 20 and in Miami in June.
Luis Martínez-Fernández, the director of the Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies Program at UCF, and Cecilia Rodríguez Milanés, a professor in the English Department worked with Salas on the documentary.
Martínez-Fernández, a native of Havana, provided the historical backdrop to the film, which chronicles several waves of Cuban refugees. It does so through personal interviews in which men and women talk about the struggle to get to America and who and what they had to leave behind.
Martínez-Fernández explains the political and cultural implications of leaving behind their homeland and the intimate binds that still tie them to the island. He has written several books about the island, including the award-winning "Encyclopedia of Cuba."
Rodríguez Milanés, also a native of Cuba who grew up in New Jersey, penned a poem called the "Cuban-American Manifesto" a few years ago. She performs it during Salas' film and he uses it to weave together the stories of his characters, from New York journalist Yvonne Conde, who arrived in this country alone as a child, to José Beltrán, a man who tried unsuccessfully to win the Cuban visa lottery for years and finally gave up. He left in a balsa -- a makeshift raft -- in 2005.
Salas was inspired by his father, who fled Cuba when he was 16. He swam from the Cuban side of the island to the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay through shark-infested waters. One of two friends who began the swim with him died along the way.
"He never wanted to talk about it," Salas said. "Now that the film is finished, I think it's brought us closer together."
Salas grew up in New Jersey with the Cuban culture. His mother, who is from Peru, cooked Cuban dishes, and at home the family spoke Cuban Spanish.
"It was supposed to be my final project for school," Salas said. "But I didn't have the monetary resources to do it. So I did it now."
He graduated from the College of New Jersey, formerly Trenton State College, and paid for the film with a restaurant job, credit cards and a fundraiser. He later started Ashé Multimedia Productions, a combination of creative graphic and visual freelance artists offering multi-media services.
"I just had to do it," he said of the film, which took a little more than a year to make and was shot primarily in New Jersey, Miami and Houston.
The film debuts appropriately enough at the José Martí Middle School in Union City, not far from where Salas grew up. Union City has a large Cuban population and a growing influx of other Hispanics.
The 90-minute documentary also is scheduled to be shown on June 17 at the Miami Beach Cinematheque & Gallery and the Cassagnol Design Showroom in South Beach. It will be screened again on Father's Day back at Cassagnol Design Showroom. There are also plans to screen the film in Houston and Orlando during Hispanic Heritage Month in September and October. Salas also plans to submit the film to several film festivals around the country.
"I'm very excited and I hope people can see how this has impacted all of us," Salas said. "When I got back from Miami, where I filmed portions of the documentary, I sat down at the computer to edit it. I cried. The stories of these families are so powerful; all these stories show the destruction of the family unit in some way."
Salas gave credit to the UCF professors for their help. "Dr. Martínez-Fernández's insight was incredible," Salas said. "He helped me not only with his knowledge, but with a lot of stock footage and photos that can be seen in the film."
As for Rodríguez Milanés' poem, Salas said it spoke to him as a first-generation Cuban-American with references to Elián González, who got caught up in an international fight over where he should live, Hispanics who don't speak English, and other issues first- and second-generation Cuban-Americans face.
"There was so much I connected to," he said. "I think, I hope, the film will be well-received."
To learn more about the film and to view a trailer, visit http://www.exile2005.com.
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