B L O Q U E O
Looking at the U.S. Embargo
Against Cuba
Cuba is currently, as it has been in the past, the subject of much media
attention and political scrutiny. The net effect has stoked efforts
to continue Cuba’s economic isolation. Congressional efforts to
revisit U.S. policy towards Cuba—namely, the embargo which has
in place for over 40 now—have mostly been dropped.
Media coverage of Cuba has drowned out analysis about the realities
of life on the island—especially, how the Cuban people continue
to live and cope with the blockade. Bloqueo: Looking at the U.S. Embargo
Against Cuba seeks to offer a wider perspective of these realities.
This 45-minute video gives a historical and current picture of the embargo.
It seeks to show the difficult realities of living under this policy,
in 
tandem
with how Cubans have responded. These struggles, and Cuba’s inspiring
and creative successes, have received virtually very little mainstream
media attention in the U.S.
Bloqueo examines these methods of resistance in four different arenas:
tourism, agriculture, energy and health. These policies have been employed
to not just help Cubans survive, but forge an alternative—and
ultimately more sustainable and conscious—political and social
reality.
This project is the result of the travels of two independent videographers,
Heather Haddon and Rachel Dannefer, to Cuba in 2001. We went without
a set political agenda or many preconceptions, though
both of us intrinsically felt that the embargo wasn’t working.
We went to ask as many questions as possible. We journeyed to the island
with IFCO/Pastors for Peace, a nonprofit that
has delivered vital humanitarian aid to Cuba and employed civil disobedience
to challenge the blockade since 1992.
Our journey provided
fertile ground for exploring this topic. Our interviews are the result
of speaking with participants of the Pastors for Peace delegation and
interviews in Cuba with taxi drivers, pastors, farmers, and other Cubans
from all walks of Cuban society. Bloqueo allow Cubans to speak uncensored
about the embargo, and features the voices of those who have been living,
loving, struggling, and watching Cuba evolve from pre-revolutionary
Cuba to now.
There are many documentaries about mysterious, intriguing Cuba—about
the revolution, its music, its leaders, its
night life. But there are few that examine the tremendous role that
our country has played in shaping Cuba through the embargo and how the
its people have not just coped, but worked to offer a different glimpse
on how society can exist .