This April 17 marks the 50th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion, the unsuccessful attempt by CIA-trained Cuban exiles to retake the country after the revolution in 1959. And just in time, the documentary film, “Will The Real Terrorist Please Stand Up?” about Cuba-U.S. relations and the “Cuban 5,” will be screened at the Brava Theater in the Mission District this April 16.
Recently, El Tecolote had a chance to have a few words with filmmaker Saul Landau, about this film.
Why did you choose to do make this film?
I’ve done films in Cuba in 67,68,74,87, 88 and I thought okay this was it. This is the wrap up: fifty years of Cuba-US relations and bringing to the forefront, the case of these five guys who I think merit attention from the U.S. public. They are still really unknown.
What challenges did you face making the film?
One the main challenges, as with most films when you don’t easily get foundation grants, as we didn’t in this one, is money. The second thing is access. Getting to the imprisoned Cubans. We couldn’t get into the US prisons to film. All we could do was to get one audio recording from Gerardo Hernandez but the wardens would not let us in. So the U.S. was harder to crack than Cuba was. In the film you see we got into a Cuban prison and filmed one of the bombers.
What is the message you want to get out?
I want people to understand the nature of Cuba-U.S. relations for fifty years and I think the film tries to highlight that. And secondly, I want to make people aware of the case of the Cuban 5. The jury and the judge were intimidated. If you vote for acquittal, the best that can happen to you is that your house will get burned down. In Dade County they don’t exactly have the same rules. You would be hard pressed to find a jury that’s going to acquit and admitted agent of the Cuban government in Dade County. I can’t imagine that.
Why is the case of the Cuban 5 so important for Americans to understand and support?
The case against the Cuban 5 is a terrible injustice. People who are unjustly tried or convicted should be of great concern. This is about fundamental rights about the judicial process. So it’s not just about Cuba-U.S. relations, it’s about five guys who came to the U.S. for the purpose of fighting terrorism that was being generated inside the U.S.—most of it in Dade County,
Florida. And the FBI was getting information from them but instead arrests them. Now they were clearly guilty for failing to register as foreign agents and the maximum penalty for that is 18 months. Thus far no one has been prosecuted under the foreign agents act. The FBI usually arrests and deports them. And why? It’s because the United States has people in other countries doing the exact same thing. This has been a political case. It’s catering to the Cuban lobby.
Will the film be screened in Miami?
It’s not scheduled yet but we’ll do it. It will be screened in various cities and the one that I will show up at is the one in Miami, and I expect there will be something beyond what is spoken on the radio that happens down there. I expect picket lines. Some of the Cubans take their free speech a little more serious than some Americans do. If you use it in ways they don’t like, they take that seriously and you must pay the consequences as many people have learned.
Do you have any fear as a result of how the radical exile groups will react to the film?
I expect it. I learned when I was little kid in New York City to be alert or else. I was afraid when my colleagues were killed in a car bomb in Washington in the ’70s but fear doesn’t necessarily have to mean paralysis. There was a hit put on me in the past but I try not to live in fear.