Once again, documentary film steps in to courageously and with conviction fill the quite empty shoes and abandoned mandate of the corporate controlled media - seemingly irrevocably embedded with the government as its useful idiot propaganda arm. And championing conviction over moral corruption when it comes to presenting more than one side to every story - in this case Cuba - with the documentary, Alumbrones.
Directed by South African filmmaker by Bruce Donnelly, Alumbrones is a collective portrait of the quite gender and age diverse prominent Cuban artists today. And with the title referring to the flickering lights in Cuban homes, when resources became scarce following loss of the helping hand of the former Soviet Union - along with the cruel US economic blockade against Cuba for these many decades.
But one of the most striking elements concerning the endurance of these hardships, is the resilience of the Cuban people in the face of political and capitalist aggression targeting them from the United States. And rather than the intended US affect of pressuring them to rise up against their government with artificially induced scarcity as the driving force through US economic terrorism, a determination to transcend those made in USA economic hostilities. And not only prevail as a people, but continue unhampered creating their flourishing art as well.
Alumbrones should have provided more explanation in detail how socialism in Cuba has not only created an egalitarian community of professional artists from all walks of life - something unimaginable in the class constricted United States - but through a system that supports them financially as a recognized vocation. And in which they don't have to struggle economically under the pressure to make ends meet like their US counterparts, or sell themselves off to the domineering highest financial elite, commercial benefactor bidders.
This extraordinary film is nevertheless a vividly conceived journey into the creative imagination and passion of artists in Cuba. And what happens when art purely as a socially subsidized and esteemed professional pursuit, is liberated from money.
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