MINNEAPOLIS — Some 150 people attended a political meeting and showing of “Cuba After Castro” at the Main Cinema here Aug. 26. The film, made by Abby Martin and Matthew Belen, is an interview with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who describes the escalating 67-year campaign by the U.S. government to overthrow the Cuban Revolution. It also highlights how Cuban working people are collaborating to deal with this every day.
The film showing was sponsored by the Minnesota Cuba Committee, Solidarity Committee on the Americas, Witness for Peace, Veterans for Peace, May Day Books, Doctors for Humanity and the MSP Film Society. It raised donations for the Global Health Partners Neonatal and Maternal Healthcare Initiative to send medical supplies to Cuba, with the Minnesota Cuba Committee matching each donation $2 for $1. An estimated $5,000 was raised for the GHP initiative.
Martin told the crowd via Zoom that the film was made before the recent U.S. oil blockade and other sanctions that have led to continual blackouts, food shortages and a decline in medical care due to lack of medicines, supplies and electricity.
Bruce Nestor and Susana DeLeón from the National Lawyers Guild, Minnesota chapter, spoke about their experiences at the recent international symposium “Fidel: Legacy and Future” in Havana, which featured Fidel Castro’s historic contributions to Cuba’s socialist revolution.
A display of books on the Cuban Revolution published by Pathfinder Press drew a lot of interest after the film. Almost a dozen books were sold, including several copies of Cuba and the Independence War in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde: The Fall of the Last Colonial Empire in Africa by Cuban revolutionary leader Víctor Dreke. Half the proceeds from book sales were donated to the GHP initiative