Complete version of the panel held on 29 April 2021, via Whatsapp.

Puede leer aquí la versión en español.

Panelists:

Amílcar Salatti.  TV and film screenwriter.

X Alfonso. Musician and audio-visual media producer.

Carlos Gomez. Director and producer. Bachelors in Journalism from the Universidad de Oriente in 2010. In 2017 he created the audio-visual production company Wajiros Films, with which he has participated in the production of more than thirty short films, and five feature films. He has participated in panels on entrepreneurship in Cuba at various universities in the United States and Mexico.

Ed Augustin. Journalist. He has written for The Guardian, New York Times, Al Jazeera, The Nation, Mediapart. He has produced audio-visual / documentary reports for Guardian Film, Al Jazeera, Telesur, Hispan TV, France 24, TRT. He has lived in Havana for eight years.

Roberto Smith de Castro. Graduated in Psychology from the University of Havana (1979). He has ever since been with ICAIC (The Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry) holding different positions. He was vice president from 2002 to 2013 and president until 2018. He is the current director of Cine Cubano magazine.

Rafael Hernández: Welcome to our remote Último Jueves debate, dedicated to «Audio-visual media, art and social communication». This panel will address a set of issues that have to do with the complex, hybrid, and diverse phenomenon of contemporary audio-visual media.

These transformations that have taken place in the field of production, distribution and consumption of audio-visual products have led to the emergence of a completely different situation from the one that characterized the last century in relation to the film industry and even television. Digital TV, cable, Internet, cell phones, digital networks, as well as independent production, have left a mark not only on art but on the messages that audio-visual media convey. This includes, of course, not only films and documentaries, but also soap operas, series, specialized channel programs, video clips, and also the practices of audio-visual journalism, which are assumed to be windows onto the reality surrounding us;  with no need to connect to cable or satellite, or to go to a video or movie theater, consumers of these audio-visual productions transform their aesthetic tastes, absorb different information and knowledge that make up new cultures, new mentalities and new civic attitudes.

Today's panel aims to discuss how these changes have transformed the creation, dissemination and consumption of these diverse products, and their status as a medium of communication, that is, as areas for debate and the production of representations of the world.

Let's begin then with the first question: To what extent can audio-visual media be considered a means of social communication? If it is, then why? More so than previously? What new characteristics does it have?

Amílcar Salatti: Currently, audio-visuals are perhaps the main means of communication. The power of audio-visual media has spread and diversified in such a way that its almost omnipresent in our lives. In one way or another, at some point in the day we come across an audio-visual clip and we receive information, influences, trends, which shape a state of opinion within us, which marks our interaction with society.

I think its new features are given by the diversity, the speed and the capacity for interaction that exists today. It does not matter whether we are watching classic TV programs (which supply us with ever larger, clearer, and more "real" images), or looking at a PC, telephone, tablet ... no device limits us from having access to audio-visual material. It is there at the click of a button. We are the ones who have to be better educated both culturally and as people to discern what we watch and what we are don’t.

X Alfonso: Of course, it is a medium for transmitting messages and putting ideas in people's minds which is even more evident with visual support. I don't think this is more marked than before. It has been used for many purposes since this medium has existed; for ideological, political and simply promotional purposes. What is new is that now audio-visual clips do not depend on linear and traditional media to reach the public, thanks to the Internet.

Carlos Gómez: The audio-visual medium, from a language perspective, is the most natural way of communicating, since it involves two of our main senses, that is, it has always been present in our forms of communication. Looking at it from that perspective and understanding its evolution as directly proportional to technological advances, we can affirm and understand why it is the main means of social communication that has existed in the last hundred years of human history. However, it is now that we can claim that it has reached such high levels that it already conditions communication itself. How we dress, speak, dance, eat, etc., are conditioned today by what comes to us audio-visually via different media. In my opinion, these changes are mostly for the better and are part of the very evolution of our species, even though at the same time we have to admit that there are many mistakes and horrors in these media.

Ed Augustin: Of course, audio-visual material is a medium for social communication. This has been the case since the first videos of the Lumière brothers in France because there is a social relationship between the audio-visual producer and the consumer. Producing audio-visuals is a communicational act. Consuming them is a communicational act. As is sharing them. But it seems to me that the communicational part has intensified in the 21st century, and during the pandemic more than ever. I suggest this is on account of two main factors:

1) The online / offline distinction has crumbled:

Audio-visual creations filter throughout our social interactions more than ever. Before, one had to go to a specific space to consume audio-visual content: a cinema, or at least sit in front of the television. Right now, with smartphones, that is not necessary. You can be talking to a friend, make a video, and upload it. It is more a part of the social fabric than ever before. A health app that monitors how many kilometers you walk in a day, which is always on, no matter whether or not you are looking at the app. The average American looks at his cell phone almost a hundred times a day - often to consume audio-visuals. This fragments our experience, our conversations.

Audio-visuals are present on our screens, almost like the air we breathe - and this trend is accelerating.

2) So-called big data - that is, the constant collection of our data - has huge social ramifications.

Facebook spies on us. If we have it installed on our mobile, and we are connected to the Internet all day, even with the application closed, it listens to us. Experiments have been done where in a conversation between two people with their phones close by, one says: “You know what? I really think we need a canopy for the garden. I would like to buy one”. And 48 hours later, images of awnings appear in the “sponsored content” of their Facebook page.

The same happens with other big tech giants - Apple, Facebook, Google - whose apps monitor us when they are supposedly not turned on and their algorithms calculate what type of audio-visual material they should provide us: according to the type of content, values, aesthetics, etc. This has very profound compartmentalization effects. Before, in my country, England, a large proportion of the population watched the news, evening soap operas, etc. on the BBC. Not any more. Our neighbors consume increasingly personalized and differentiated content. This undermines the collective imaginary, and the social, symbolic, ideological ties that unite a nation. And we see the result of this today in the United States, Great Britain, and even Cuba, I would say. As for politics, for example, it is as if many people lived in parallel universes, where their mental maps of reality are so different that even having rational discourse between some groups is increasingly difficult.

A French philosopher, Bernard Stiegler, argued: “the catastrophe of the digital age is that the global economy, powered by computational ‘reason’ and driven by profit, is foreclosing the horizon of independent reflection for the majority of our species, in so far as we remain unaware that our thinking is so often being constricted by lines of code intended to anticipate, and actively shape, consciousness itself.” And I think he was right.

Roberto Smith: I believe that we must start from the fact that “audio-visual material” is a creative production or a product, not a medium in itself, although its presence is so dominant in different media platforms, that we could even speak about different audio-visual media, even beyond cinema and television. The audio-visual is a significant part of the intense flows of social communication in which we are all immersed.

For many years there has been a convergence of media that blurs the boundaries between one and the other, and in this process the audio-visual is one of its pillars. The Internet universe contains all media and, at the same time, makes it easier for the “grip” of the audio-visual to be present across the board.

The audio-visual universe surrounds us. Interaction with the multiple screens that are part of our environment is permanent. In particular, mobile phones are a permanent connection with all this audio-visual universe. The relative contemplative passivity of the past when looking at audio-visual material is today a frenzied interactivity.

Social networks, with their addictive nature, throw all sorts of texts, images and audio-visuals at us, with people preferring audio-visual material, whether or not it is coherent, crazy, sane or delusional. Cultural globalization, which is based on hegemonic communication media, generates a permanent counterpoint with national, regional and community cultures.

In this setting, the space of art is blurred. The artistic hierarchy moves very close to the mediocre and the lowest denominator. Movies, series, soap operas, video clips, advertising clips, etc., combine the most dissimilar qualities. And one wonders: is all this good or bad, positive or negative? Of course, we have to say that, in principle, it is good, it is positive.

Now, this same question can be asked in another way. Is the intense relationship we maintain with audio-visual content a source of knowledge, sensitivity, a thing of beauty, humanistic values, spirituality or is it a source of alienation, manipulation, trivialization, conscious or unconscious submission to commercial, political or other interests?

A key issue: audio-visual is a language that nobody normally teaches us. At school we learn to read and write texts, but well before that, children have been interacting with the audio-visual world without any instruction. We learn this language with practice. The audio-visual material itself that we see is the place where we learn to be able to understand and interpret it. Of course, this generates a weak point in our ability to view audio-visual production critically, to which we abandon ourselves with delighted wonderment. The effect of one type of message implicit in a given product is not the same as the effect of those implicit messages in the type of audio-visual material we see from a young age and throughout our lives. And this is even worse when we analyze the combined effect of audio-visual content within social networks.

Hence the insistence on the development of an audio-visual culture, on audio-visual appreciation training and on the indispensable field of edu-communication (communication training). The art-communication-education-society relationship should not be a spontaneous construction given by the randomness present in each person’s life.

Rafael Hernández: Are there dominant patterns in the aesthetics of these various audio-visual products? What are those patterns? To what extent do the ways of making and consuming audio-visuals have an effect? Do they originate from the same "centers" as in the past? Have other alternative "centers" emerged? In the "periphery" (the Third World) as well?

Amílcar Salatti:  Unfortunately, there are models that have been putting the diversity of the world reflected through audio-visual media in danger. There is plenty of evidence of the dominance of American cinema, its blockbusters and commercial films, in cinemas across the world. They set certain tastes and consumption patterns amongst the audience, which tend to homogenize something as diverse as universal culture. To make matters worse, the all-powerful Netflix, HBO, Amazon, etc., come on the scene to reinforce the perception that already existed that the best is what is produced from those centers of media power. So, if twenty years ago the United States had the power in cinemas, now it also has the power of TV, streaming, and perhaps everything else that keeps emerging along the way.

However, there are alternative centers, and on the periphery. Examples abound: the new Asian cinema, the boom in Spanish series (which does not mean that they don't move according to the commercial trends), and the odd flash in our region. But to access them, you have to know that there is life beyond Netflix, Hollywood, and all those people who always make us look in the same direction.

X Alfonso: Yes, they exist. The most common models recently are mainly for entertainment; not totally, but mostly, they are devoid of content, pretty much clones of something that has already been seen, and lacking in storylines or messages, as a general rule. Today, thanks to new technologies, there is a total decentralization in the way audio-visual clips are produced.

Carlos Gómez: The trends in contemporary audio-visual products are always conditioned by consumption; what is going to be consumed is produced, even in small quantities, but always responding to the focus on consumption. What happens today is a very well thought out fragmentation of these products, that is, unlike what happened 40 or 50 years ago, when everything was mass-produced, now it is about "targeting" the products and creating or satisfying the widest range of customer tastes.

For less developed countries, these new forms have also been an opportunity to make themselves visible and express themselves, and why not, to create their consumer networks. Although previously the problem used to be production of this alternative content itself, these days the issue is accessing the largest distribution or broadcast platforms such as Netflix, HBO, APPLE TV+, etc., although it must be acknowledged that, little by little, these platforms are looking towards other corners of the planet; yes, true, relying on classic stereotypes such as Mexican-Colombian drug traffickers, communist Cubans, smiling Dominicans who spend their time dancing merengue, etc.

Ed Augustin: The fundamental grammar of audio-visuals has maintained its syntax: a hundred years ago there were sequences that made up a narrative unit, usually connected by space and time. This remains the same. As for the narrative, I would say that there is continuity between today and a hundred years ago. Movements like the modernism of Samuel Becket and Virginia Woolf have left their mark, but the audio-visual products that are still the most satisfying are well-told universal stories: usually with a three-act structure. We see this currently in the most popular and highest quality series, on Netflix, and Latin, European and Hollywood productions.

However, there are aesthetic changes in digital networks, cable, apps. The trend is towards:

1) Shorter videos. Online, videos, news, documentaries and movies are shorter. It is no longer a captive audience: their attention is pulled in several directions at once. Instead of 30 or 60 minutes, it is already normal to make a documentary of 30 or 60 seconds.

2) The pace is picking up; the cuts are faster.

3) Audio-visual production has been democratized. Fifty years ago, having a video camera was the exclusive domain of television stations, studios, or the wealthy. But today there are 3.5 billion smartphones in the world - that is, almost half of the world's population has a device with which they can shoot and edit videos. This is a massive shift. The production, distribution and consumption of audio-visuals is within the reach of millions of people. This has changed the aesthetics. One of these changes is that the "authentic" prevails over the "perfect". We have all seen the images of Tahir Square in the “Egyptian revolution” of 2011. The most iconic scenes were filmed with mobile phones. We see the same with the San Isidro Movement –the “live” streaming of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, in the photo of the rapper who recently resisted arrest. Dirty, pixelated images are more acceptable - and sometimes preferred – over clean ones with a balanced composition.

4) This same democratization of production and distribution has also led to the proliferation of banality. I know many, many people who spend hours every week watching videos of cats dancing to Arabian music, or memes of chickens dancing without moving their heads. This did not use to happen.

Roberto Smith: An aesthetic analysis of the audio-visual starts by recognizing its obvious diversity. We, from a cinema perspective, always try to spare films from the audio-visual tidal wave, where everything is mixed in its technological roots and increasingly, in languages. Sometimes our defense might even be pathetic, not for experts, but for mass audiences, especially the youngest: “This is a movie…, it is not a series, it is not a TV drama, it is not a video clip! It is a movie…!". And someone might answer with a question: "How is a movie different from an episode in a series or a long video clip?"

On the other hand, we cannot forget that, even if we total up all the audio-visual material that we have seen in cinemas, on television, at home with digital copies, etc., we are seeing only a tiny part of all the audio-visual production that is made in the world. If we want to look for dominant patterns, we would be doing it with what little we know and, inevitably, the multiculturalism and diversity that exist in audio-visual expressions would escape us. One example: during the days of the Havana Film Festival alone we can access a wealth of cinematographic options that break the mold of what is most frequently seen.

In summary, it is difficult for me to define patterns, although it is clear that audio-visual language changes, evolves, and normally one can tell when what they are watching was produced years ago.

An important part of the audio-visual realm that is most widely circulated, responds to commercial intentions that generate codes and resources of language, image and sound to capture the viewer. We see stories that can only be defended through spectacle, through the dizzying pace, through certain archetypes. Often, we can see the contradiction between technological deployment and spiritual poverty. In the cinema, the greatest successes in the world often correspond to storylines aimed at a global spectator who must abandon part of his adult reasoning. A lot of cinema is also produced in the world with artistic intentions, although it is not always easy to find appropriate projection venues. And in these spaces, we find stories that can only be defended with tempo, with deep, contradictory, provocative characters and situations.

I clarify that I am using schematic descriptors to try to illustrate a reality that is much more complex. The commercial and the artistic are not mutually exclusive. And it would be nonsense to say that commercial cinema is "bad" and that artistic, original work created by an individual, is "good." There is everything in this world.

Rafael Hernández: To what extent do these dominant patterns influence audio-visuals in Cuba today? In production? Distribution? Consumption? Can common traits that characterize them be identified? Can you say something about what distinguishes Cuban audio-visuals? "Positive"? "Negative"?

Amílcar Salatti: In our country, these dominant patterns mainly influence consumption. People flock to the guy who sells the weekly "packets" (audio-visual entertainment materials not shown on Cuban TV and circulated by means of weekly disk downloads) to look for the latest film, the latest series ... we already know where they’re from. I have never heard someone looking for, for example, The Collapse, a masterful French series. To access that type of material, we would have to prune back on everything that the production companies who are in charge put in front of our eyes.

I think the concept of distribution is something gone from our cinema and our television. I have never heard any ICRT or ICAIC executive thinking of a project to be distributed on a large scale. Sometimes I feel that we make films and TV just to have an audio-visual and cultural memory to teach future generations, and it is not thought through from an industry point of view. Perhaps that is what has condemned us from being one of the leaders in Latin America in TV and film, to lagging far behind what we used to be in the last century.

I think it is urgent to incorporate and exploit cinema also as an industry. If we all dedicate ourselves to making experimental films, they will be viewed less and less. We need many films like Memories of Underdevelopment, but also many Juan of the Dead.

And that is a negative feature of Cuban cinema. There is no variety in genre and themes. There are no thrillers, no terror, no love stories, no zombies, no aliens ... and that variety is necessary.

I think, on the positive side, there is talent, many people wanting to make films. And I am hopeful that this diversity of scriptwriters, directors, producers will end up achieving that diversity in themes and genres that I was talking about earlier.

X Alfonso: As I already said, when people see what is most widely watched, it is automatically cloned, and from the moment you can make an audio-visual with a mobile phone, production, distribution and consumption are totally linked to new forms of promotion imposed by social networks. You can find everything in audio-visuals; it is only up to the person to identify if he or she is going to contribute something or not.

Carlos Gómez: I believe that in Cuba the international patterns of audio-visual production and consumption are increasingly up-to-the-minute and that is good. However, to analyze this issue we must separate audio-visual material produced by the artistic sector (state or non-state) from the spontaneous production that is generated in this new reality where literally anyone can become a content disseminator. And we need to separate them because one part of these productions tries to maintain traditional features or innovate from the accepted position of a national cinematography, while the other is governed purely by consumption or is imitating products that worked previously.

Ed Augustin: Yes, but the arrival of these dominant patterns has been partial. The "Weekly Package" has been key; audio-visual content that is put on national television and the internet is subject to relatively little censorship. On the other hand, I suspect that these currents are less dominant in Cuba than in many other countries because mass access to the internet is relatively recent, and because the State - with a socialist logic - monopolizes various media.

We also see that productions like Los Lucas is an attempt to copy the MTV aesthetic. Others like Bailando en Cuba and Sonando en Cuba are versions of talent scout programs that first came out twenty years ago in the UK but put Cuban music at the fore and it has a national flavor in various other ways.

Roberto Smith: We saw earlier that audio-visual production cannot be analyzed as a single whole. My opinion is that, in relation to cinema, in Cuba productions with artistic intentions predominate (whether those intentions are achieved or not is another matter). Making movies to bring in money is not the same as looking for money to make movies. Most of our cinema falls within the category of those looking for money to make movies. In this sense, our cinema is related, in intentions, not in results, with much of what is done in Latin America or Europe. It is a type of cinema that thrives better where there is more financing for its production, because the finance is rarely clawed back in the market.

In Cuba, we are in the first year of operation of the Fund for the Promotion of Cuban Cinema, a mechanism that allows ICAIC, as an institution of the Cuban State, to fund the best pieces that are submitted in their calls for submission. In addition, there are other new forms of support for independent cinema. These mechanisms alleviate a problem that slowed production for several years. Before, at ICAIC there was an acceptable balance between the creative capacity of filmmakers and the industrial capacity to produce their films. For many years now, the creative capacity of filmmakers has been much greater than the ability to produce their films. And this is where we find the young filmmakers, many of them graduates of our film schools. Now there needs to be an increase in production and we will soon see if it is possible to identify dominant patterns.

In terms of consumption, in audience preferences, key preferences lean towards a specific type of audio-visual that, as we said before, is accessed, and the access responds to vested interests or to commercial or pseudo-commercial policies, which favor the dissemination of that type of audio-visual material and cinema over another that becomes invisible. However, amongst audiences there is a diversity of tastes and preferences, often expressed as part of the spiritual and cultural development of each person.

Our society is under the effect of screening limitations in cinemas (which until the 1980s was an enriching element), of the excess of cinematographic TV programming (despite efforts to show good films), the free circulation of thousands of films and other audio-visuals, and the lack of audio-visual education. Cuban cinema, which always used to be preferred by the public, whether produced by institutions or independently, will increasingly have to eke out its space among viewers.

Rafael Hernández: In the case of Cuban audio-visuals, to what extent have the differences between institutional and private sector audio-visuals marked their aesthetics and content? Do these differences exist between one and the other? How do you classify the artistic quality? The communicative efficiency? What qualities and deficiencies do they share?

Amílcar Salatti:  I believe that the private sector works more with talent that does not reach the public institutions. This is a talent that is generally young, has turned its back on producing with television because of its convoluted methods, and other issues such as censorship, the priority levels given to content, the factors determining what is produced and with what.

There is talent out there, and also on television. But out there in the street there are production facilities, content alternatives, there is a plasticity that does not exist with TV when producing, and that goes against those of us who work for TV. Currently, with the changes that have come about, there is a rapprochement between institutions and independent creators, and that will have an impact on raising the quality of audio-visuals.

It is true that it is not only the ability to produce which determines the value of a piece. You also need talent, passion, authenticity, but in audio-visual material, resources make a vital difference in the final production. Sometimes something good can be achieved for next to nothing, and someone else with thousands in funding cannot achieve the same. So television would have to attract those people who can achieve a lot with very little, and make the necessary resources available for that talent to develop.

In the public institutions as well as in the private sector, there are both good qualities and deficiencies. And it would be unfair to superficially judge them for one on-screen result that is influenced by lots of factors, too many to mention here. I don't think television can turn its back on private sector talent, nor should the private sector reject TV.

X Alfonso: There is not much difference between the audio-visuals created by institutions and independent creators because institutions hire independents to make their productions. The only thing, in this case, that can make a difference between them is the censorship that the institution might impose on the content. And it is very easy to see when it is one or the other by the audio-visual’s political or ideological content.

Carlos Gómez: This is a more complicated issue. I think that some very good ideas have emerged from the "independent sector", but they have also emerged from the institutions. The two variants constantly feed back into each other. In my opinion, the great problem of our cinema is the over-emphasis on Cuban reality, often presenting a fixed and superficial view. I think that we need to be a little more universal in our stories and ways of telling them. Currently, several projects are being carried out between independent producers and the ICAIC and the result seems to be encouraging.

Ed Augustin: I think there is a clear dichotomy between state productions and private productions.

• Private: they tend to express capitalist logic and capitalist values.

• State: they tend to express socialist logic and socialist values.

• Private: audio-visuals –especially in video clips– highly sexualized, following the influence of other Latino productions.

• State: less sexualized. Images that could be understood as mistreatment of women or prostitution are simply censored.

• Private: emphasis on consumerism.

• State: less emphasis on consumerism for reasons of ideology. The intentionality that underlies many audio-visuals is social in nature. That is why we see that, instead of being geared towards consumption like Brazilian soap operas, Cuban soap operas have the purpose of educating viewers about, for example, AIDS or the emancipation of women. The problem with this very noble intention is that many people find these productions boring.

• Private: fast

• State: slower

• Private: higher budget

• State: lower budget.

Roberto Smith: We have all heard many opinions on this subject. In my opinion, there are differences, but I think that many depend on the circumstances.

Regarding production conditions, before Decree Law 373 was approved, independent filmmakers were not legally recognized and made their films within a complex unregulated environment. State institutions could not establish normal creative and productive relationships with this sector. In this sense, they were free to work alone and at the same time they were excluded. Today, the scene is beginning to change, with even an incipient creative and productive relationship between the establishment and the independents, who continue and will continue to be independent, in a new concept of Cuban cinema.

On the other hand, in relation to aesthetics and content, in independent production, which is more prolific than that of institutions, we find the youngest filmmakers. It is normal that the content of their work is marked by a vision of the world, of society and the country, from the prism of their creative individualities and their generation. New themes, new treatments of old themes, new audacity in language appears among the younger filmmakers. However, I think that the artistic quality, the aesthetic values ​​are more associated with the talent of the creators than with their age, or with the economic backdrop to their productions.

Cuban cinema, seen as a whole, faces the challenge of regaining its strength, first in the eyes of its own audience and later, as part of the avant-garde cinematographies of our region.

Rafael Hernández: What factors could contribute to raising the quality of Cuban audio-visuals, as art and as communication products? Economic? Technico-productive? Legislative? Educational? Institutional? Cultural and media policy?

Amílcar Salatti: Television has to do more to filter content, scripts, seek quality at the root, go out and shoot with the assurance that it is something that has quality. Sometimes audio-visuals are made to plug a gap in the schedule, because this or that director has not done anything for a while, etc. It is necessary to pay attention to the times we live in, to understand what communicates and what does not.

All the factors mentioned in the question influence audio-visual production. From the permits granted by the government or the MININT (Interior Ministry) that are hell to get and take forever, to the culture and audio-visual knowledge of TV decision-makers, by giving priority to talent and not to the number of years in the business.

Managing to raise the quality of our audio-visuals involves many people and a lot of factors. It is not the work of a single individual, of a single institution. Many people are needed to give a push toward gaining in professionalism and quality, starting with ourselves, those of us who are professionally dedicated to audio-visuals.

X Alfonso: I think it would take more depth and research when creating the product, the economic factor is relative, it depends on the production you have in mind. And also, on how open the media and institutions are.

For me, saying cultural policy is like saying water and oil; there's no way they can be mixed. There is policy ... and there is culture; when they mix it is to support an ideology.

But, in the end, the quality depends entirely on the product, on the objective and the final idea between the artist and the director, or in the best scenario, the artist.

Carlos Gómez: From my very personal perspective, I think we need to understand how our world works and upgrade us while at the same time adapt ourselves. We should not give ourselves over to the industry but not turn our back on it, either. Our cinema badly needs an injection of marketing; we producers should aspire to recover part of our investment in the domestic circuit and live from our profession. That is the principal way in which we will maintain or increase the quality of our productions. It seems a very materialistic conclusion, but film is recognized as an industry, even in the name of ICAIC itself, and should function as such. Nonetheless, we cannot not deny what is done outside the industry or define subject matters from ideological, economic or populist interests.   

Ed Augustin: Several factors could contribute to raising quality:

• Raise the salaries of state creators (the best way to make this possible would be through the removal of US sanctions).

• Reduce bureaucratic obstacles. Obtaining permits to film is very complicated and takes months. Often when the permits arrive, what one can film is micromanaged and controlled by officials. For example, last year I filmed at the William Soler Hospital. My "handlers" selected the patient with whom we could speak. This greatly limited the story we were able to tell. Normally, if you want to make a high-end documentary, you have to interview dozens of people before you find the one with the special story you want to tell.

• Less top-down control, less censorship and more freedom of expression and artistic creation. I understand that ICAIC is much more open than Cuban television. But even at ICAIC, my filmmaker friends tell me about censorship and self-censorship, which reduces the quality of their productions. This also contributes to the brain drain from the state to the private sector, and from the island to overseas.

• More art critics in the state media.

• Democratization of the productive sphere. There are some professions where there is a lot of capacity to be develop professionally: science is one of them, as we see with the development of vaccines. In Cuba, one can receive quality training and perform 100% in the productive sphere. For that reason, I believe that these scientists feel happy, fulfilled in their work.

There are other jobs where this is not the case and there is a huge gap between the educational and the productive spheres. Journalism seems to me a striking example. Cubans who study journalism at the University of Havana receive very good quality training. But when they start to work for the State –for example, in Granma or in the Cuban News Agency–, I know some who “burn out” because they feel that they cannot be fulfilled, that they cannot apply the skills they learned in school to the world of work. This creates existential anguish and radicalizes many people against the Cuban system. It's sad to see it.

It seems to me that people who work in audio-visuals in Cuba occupy a space between these two extremes. They are not as limited as journalists, but neither are they as free as scientists. So, perhaps, to raise the quality of Cuban audio-visual creations, a very honest, deep and on-going debate between creators and the government is needed to create an environment which is more conducive to creativity.

Roberto Smith: Produce, produce, produce. You cannot expect a lot of great works to appear with minimal production. It is often said - and it is surely not true - that a great leader asks why in his country a hundred films were made in a year and only ten were good. The answer comes back that usually only 10% of what is produced is any good. So the ruler passes an order that in the next year a thousand films should be made so that 10%, which would be one hundred, would turn out well. A thousand films are made, but only ten are good. Ultimately, there is no formula that explains the quantity-quality relationship, but when more is produced, creators, artists and the industry itself gets training by experience, they grow artistically, forge their talents in practice, and better films come forth.

For production to increase, financing is essential. And we know that making movies is always very expensive. When talking about state financing, we cannot forget the state of the country's economy, the urgent requirements and the country's priorities. Even so, as I mentioned, the Cuban State decided to create the Fund for the Promotion of Cuban Cinema to support independent projects. In other countries there are film laws that, alongside other agencies, regulate box office quotas for independent national producers. For well-known reasons, in Cuba, not even with all the box office revenue can national cinema be financed.

Another vital issue is choosing the right works to produce, the interest of the storyline, the strength of the scripts. This is a matter that may seem easy, but it is not because many filmmakers defend their creative freedom with projects that producers consider need to be further worked on and matured.

Apart from talking about the essential economic, technico-productive, legislative, educational, institutional, and cultural policy factors, it is essential to recover the cultural climate of cinematographic and audio-visual production, at one time considered the cultural movement of Cuban cinema. This is one of the objectives of the current ICAIC leadership, alongside other essential aims, and I cite among these the recovery of movie theaters, encouraging film critics, promoting publishing and developing a digital platform that serves as a support for what is done to enable the widest public access.

Rafael Hernández: Many thanks to our panelists for concentrating on the questions, for being very concise in their responses, and for bringing us a diversity of perspectives. What I have liked the most of what I have heard has been the differences of views that they have contributed in relation to these questions.

 Naturally, what we have sought in this audio-visual topic is to understand that audio-visuals are not only works of art but also communication media, in the sense that they carry messages, including not only those for which they are explicitly designed, but also those which do not overtly convey a message.

 For example, some people have claimed that they are the main media sources, more than any other this century.  Others believe that they are just one more, that they have always existed with their function to transmit a message since the first ones were created before information technologies, only now they are different; they are not more communicational than before nor more ideological or advertising-focused, but they are different. At the same time, others have said that they are very different because of how widespread they are and their immediacy, because they condition all social communication, because they have been socialized like never before, and because it is a progressive change, that is, that we should celebrate them. And others have highlighted the fact that this audio-visual production, and in general this digitization of everyday life, gives rise to phenomena such as networks, which spy on us, which take away our ability to reason.

Here I would like to pose a new question: do we need to become literate in order to use these media rationally or productively?

Regarding the subject of the dominant patterns in the aesthetics of these audio-visual products, the panel has expressed that there are some that affect diversity, that repetitive modes of entertainment prevail, that are like clones, like serial productions, but also there are works that represent alternative aesthetics, determined by supply. Others have mentioned that they are determined by demand or by the way in which supply conditions demand, differentiated products are offered for different audience segments, but in general they do agree that it has been decentralized.

There are new, faster, modalities with more independent creators, and imperfect images, which have to do with the aesthetics of those products. The proliferation of banality has also left a mark on some of these products. There really is a broad diversity of forms. Despite the predominance of commercial trends, it is not possible to state that both they and the artistic trends are distributed evenly, in terms of the cinema, for example, in such a way that commercial film is "bad" and auteur cinema is "good".

 Which raises another question for the panel: to what extent can art cinema or commercial cinema, good cinema or good audio-visuals, be kept separate from the forms of production, from trends in aesthetic taste that have to do with the forms of production, creation, with speed, with pace, with images, etc. that characterize commercial audio-visuals? Of course, in the case of Cuba.

Some panelists have raised the issue of the quality of Cuban audio-visual production, the lack of a vision of film-making as an industry and the lag with respect to film production in Latin America; the need to generate a film industry that is not just based on auteur cinema or audio-visual production which is not really that, but one that encompasses a diversity of genres; the question of catching up with the latest vogue, both in State institutions and outside them; and others consider that we are not lagging behind Latin American cinema, that the problems are very similar, especially in the production of film as art, as a cultural product.

Finally, I would like to just refer to the responses related to the issue of state or institutionally produced cinema and what we call "independent" production. Some panelists have highlighted the superiority of independent cinema in terms of flexibility, in its ability to develop more efficient decision-making processes in relation to creating. Others simply say that there are no differences because most of what independent audio-visual producers do also feeds into public channels or media, or is work commissioned by them as well. There is consensus on artistic talent, which is also present in both. Some think that the problem with this production lies more in its local focus, in the fact that both the independents and those who make films with institutional support address Cuban issues and in a very stilted manner; and there are also some responses related to the fact that independent cinema is closer to the audio-visual material produced under capitalism, while institutional cinema reflects more the values ​​and our particular brand of socialism.

As we have seen, the spectrum of responses has been very varied, and I am very grateful to the panelists for warming up the discussion in this way.

We are now going to hand over to our audience that is out there listening to us, and who have been invited to ask questions and offer comments. Please go ahead.

Dalgis Román: I am grateful to Temas for the opportunity to participate in the debate. I have listened to the opinions of the panelists, and I would like to contribute my experience from the perspective of a filmmaker who has been dedicated to audio-visual production for twenty years in a TV center that has very few resources, but has put talent as the purpose and essence of the things we have done, which have been well received, although we are always looking to achieve more.

 That duality of experiencing audio-visuals made via an institution for so long, and since 2019, starting to do our work as an independent artist gives us the possibility of looking from these two variants, let's call it that, of how to produce an audio-visual where - I agree with the panelists - the fundamental thing is the talent, the content, but we cannot fail to recognize what our compositions could be, with greater resources, with more time, because that is a factor that, thanks to television, forces us to an immediacy that sometimes, or I would say, most of the time, severely limits creativity, because when working as independent audio-visual producers we have more space.

But essentially the work is equally committed, those of us who dedicate ourselves to issues and content related to art, traditions, culture, are respectful of our contribution in any of the variants in which we make the audio-visual material. But we are very grateful to all those who were involved with setting up the Registry of the Independent Audio-visual and Cinematographic Creator, with its Decree-Law 373. It is a great opportunity that is contributing and will contribute much more to developing the sphere of the audio-visual in Cuba from anywhere on our island. Thank you very much for the opportunity, warm regards to all, and we are really enjoying being able to discuss the issues in this way.

Ángel Pérez: Essayist and art critic. It seems to me very important that institutions and the government create an infrastructure that is capable of supporting this whole range of creations. I want to mention, as an example, a web series that an artist made, the title of which I have forgotten. It was made for sharing via Instagram, very interesting as a product and, of course, as it was geared to that platform, it had a particular visual quality. But I think that, if these youngsters on their own initiative are capable of creating such things, such interesting products, Cuban institutions should create links or seek out these filmmakers and give them the chance to create. I know that certain policies or decisions that go beyond the fact of creation itself play a complex role, but I don't think that should be an impediment.

 And with regard to the impact of commercial audio-visuals in Cuba, that could be positive as well, because the commercial films are not a problem. Elsewhere, I have spoken about a film like El Regreso (The Return), if I remember correctly, which is the title of the film by Blanca Rosa Blanco, which is set in the style of the traditional police drama, but a far cry from Tras la Huella, for example. It is a very bold film, casting a woman as a heroine as it does, in other words, it is a pro-feminist film in that sense. I don't know if the female director captured, for example, the radical nature of this woman solving a case of none other than rape and doing it outside the structures of the law. She took it personally, the police were unable to listen to her, and from outside the law she solved a case, and, on top of that, she dared to make the villain a school teacher, who in Cuba is always portrayed in official media as a person with an impeccable image. This is a film that managed, within a completely commercial structure, to handle ideas that seemed to me to be of incredible relevance and radicality for the product that it was. That gives us an example that we can make commercial films, that draw an audience and are able to make a statement on issues. We have to find a way to reconcile quality with commercial aspects, which can be done without keeping artistic cinema from having its place. Many of the independent production companies that have emerged in Cuba have the intention of reconciling the commercial with the artistic, and this seems to me to be something positive.

The ICAIC, and not only that institution, but also the government and the State, should realize that these Diez Latidos por Segundo (Ten Beats per Second) youngsters, for example, or many of the independent audio-visual authors, do not want the institutions to assimilate them, but they want a legal structure that is capable of giving them the opportunity to create freely, and I believe that it is one of the things that will greatly improve the social scene in Cuba. We have to break with this centralization of Cuban life that is so disastrous, and I believe that this is what weighs the heaviest on creativity.

Víctor Villalba: I am a documentary film maker for Resumen Latinoamericano. I think that, in Cuba, we audio-visual creators have very few creative spaces and opportunities to develop. So, the question is, is it possible to debate this issue? Why do artists have the need to create in Cuba? Can our creative demands develop under a favorable environment? I don’t think so. I also see and feel - and I would like it to be brought to the debate - that in Cuba there is a great need to continue creating, even though we may think that we have very few spaces, so I would like the debate to be focused a little more on creative activity and the main problems faced by us young people and the not so young, who are a product of current times, beyond the result of the final product, which might be good, bad or indifferent.

Loly Estévez: Journalist for Cuban Television. The so-called democratization, facilitated by new technologies, opens up access to creating audio-visual content to almost anyone. Today millions communicate through audio-visual means, as Roberto Smith points out, with a language that nobody normally teaches us. Most of what circulates in the world, including Cuba, has aesthetic and ethical deficiencies. If we add to this the global economic crisis, the future of art and culture, of course, audio-visual production also, seems uncertain. What do you think?

Leslie Salgado: Journalist and audio-visual producer. I would like to go back to the question that Rafael asked about literacy, and that brings me to a reflection: all audio-visual products are communicational, and all communicational products have a function. So, from the very conception of this audio-visual, we are thinking of the audience, and we have to share and create knowledge in those audiences so that they learn to read and differentiate those functions. That is very important, we will have to start in schools, probably, for all of us to become literate, in order to also know, as consumers, what we are faced with and in order to differentiate between the function of one and the other, even when we are in the role of producers.

Rafael Hernández: Many thanks to the audience participants for their comments and questions. With regards to this discussion panel, it seems to me that there is a broad diversity that I pointed to when presenting the opportunity for the audience to participate; a broad range of ideas that would be worth delving further into if the panelists are willing. I invite our panelists to refer not only to these comments, which are substantial, but also to what was said by the other panel members, so that we can expand on a few aspects, since all of you participating in the debate have kept within the time constraints. So, I'm going to give the floor to our panelists once again.

Amílcar Salatti: The interventions from the people who are taking part offer a diversity of perspectives on this very complex issue, which has taken a long time to be discussed in high places, and we are still dragging along all these problems of creative freedoms, censorship, production possibilities, which we really need to clear up so that artists can create freely and have freedom. As someone said, in line with the ethical and aesthetic canons of our society. The important thing is to stimulate the debate beyond this panel, among the people who decide these kinds of things at a higher level. They are really discussions that have been going on for a long time, they are steps that have needed taking, but I believe that has still not been fully achieved. They are essential to ensure that our creativity and productivity, from the audio-visual point of view, are not limited.

I think that becoming literate in audio-visual content is necessary, it is part of the culture, and if you work in the medium, more than just necessary, it is essential. We have to keep up to date with what is being done, with its intentions, both cultural and political. Sometimes, those of us who work in this area, and those who decide what is viewed or what is produced, are naive, and in the belief that we are contributing something useful, we go down the wrong path. Rather than a literacy campaign, I would say that we have to keep up with what's happening. All of us who work in the medium may think that we know a lot about audio-visual creation, but this is moving at tremendous speed from a technological point of view, in the methods of production, in the ways in which content reaches the public, and it is essential to be up to date.

Regarding Rafael's second question, whether to keep artistic audio-visuals separate from the aesthetic modes and styles of commercial audio-visual material, I don't think we should turn our backs on anything. There are films, commercial works that have values, which should not be discarded, and there are perhaps more artistic "approaches" that people look at more suspiciously. Feedback has to go both ways. I work in television, often I have to work with more or less commercial material, always trying, within that context, to bring the most artistic perspective possible. There are times when I can do that a little more, depending on the genre, the target audience.  But drawing boundaries, dividing things so sharply, I don't think is beneficial. We have to learn from everyone, from people or products that are purely artistic, and from commercial elements, which often end up being surprising.

X Alfonso: I want to thank you for inviting me to this panel and allowing me to be here with you in some form. I'm going to respond a little about the issue of literacy. Education is achieved through the quality of the audio-visual productions the public sees, in other words, when something is good, it is good, and it always contributes to knowledge and understanding of what is not.

Regarding whether the artistic audio-visual scene can be kept apart from the aesthetic modes and styles of the commercial audio-visual, it does not really have to be separate. It might be something super commercial and have an outstanding quality and message, in other words, that is not defined by whether or not it is commercial. In fact, some very good productions that are not done with commercial intent end up becoming commercial, and that happens because of the number of consumers they have, it does not mean that they were produced for that purpose.

I want to reply to Loly. The world economic crisis does not affect creativity; on the contrary, it makes you look for new horizons and new ways of creating and doing. Man (hombre) – or rather, hunger (hambre) - creates the need and motivates the invention. I don't know why most of the greatest works in the world have been done when artists are going through their worst times. There are thousands of examples of that, so I don't believe the global economic crisis is going to affect creativity.

Regarding what Victor said, I agree with him. There is no favorable environment because the media are completely regulated, and not always by people capable of understanding other ways of seeing or expressing art. That is why almost all the material that independent Cuban filmmakers are creating is posted directly to the networks and Internet channels, because if they decide to post it there, they do not have to depend on requesting a permit, or on whether or not they can get through the censorship process. They do their work and publish it. A lot of material is being lost this way, because it is being put on the Internet. It is not completely lost, but it would be necessary to find outlets for the creations of these young filmmakers, to be able to harness their talent and send them to festivals.

Carlos Gómez: It really is a pleasure to be able to share this virtual debate with you, and with the participants.

On the first question about literacy, I really don't like to talk in those terms because there are different ways of looking at it. One is literacy from the point of view of art consumption, which is what X was talking about, about how we educate the public to consume audio-visual products; and the other is at a technological level, which is where, as Amílcar says, we have to update ourselves. Right now, for example, what we are doing in Wajiros is thanks to a new platform, a new social network called Club House, which is being well received. It works almost in real time and it works very well. Many things are moving around there such as NFTs (non-fungible tokens), workshops to discuss social issues and others. But I do not believe that we are illiterate or that our country has technological illiteracy, because we have a generation, especially those who are now between fifteen and twenty-five years old, who are well versed in using new technologies, just like everywhere else in the world.

Likewise, on the subject of the artistic versus the commercial, I agree with X completely. There is no way to tell them apart. You can make a highly intellectual product and it ends up being very sellable. Why not somehow think about marketing it? In other words, we have demonized the commercialization of art a lot when it should, from my perspective, be a normal process to make a product and then to commercialize it. Already from the aesthetic and artistic point of view it is another issue; but in Cuba we are not alien to that; here we also have centers of power that impose ways of producing or limiting, and that is why lately we are seeing, especially on television, that there is a kind of modernization going on, where there is already talk of social networks, of Twitter. There have been some attempts to modernize the visual production, but the content, or the way in which it is presented, remains the same as twenty years ago, dogmatic, closed, without real and direct feedback, and that is where I think we lose out a little.

Responding in general terms to some of the participants, I think that we should not be afraid of technologies, but we should not underrate the viewers either. We cannot continue to think that we should be telling people what is good and what is bad. We are living in a world where technological democratization, as Loly said, allows everyone to choose what they are going to consume. Now, it depends on the level of education of each person, on what they want to consume, and that is precisely what platforms such as Netflix, YouTube, etc. are based on. Yes, there is an intention, they do try, through advertising and other things, to impose concepts or materials, but you always have the power to decide, and that has mainly come with streaming.

 Finally, I wanted to refer to what Dalgis said, because I am a provincial filmmaker, from Bayamo, and precisely in Wajiros we aim to give visibility to what is done outside the big cities, mainly outside Havana. I know how difficult it is to do things out in the provinces, but we cannot limit ourselves on account of not being in the big city, or, as Víctor also says, because there are few creative spaces or because they have conditions tied to them. I speak from my own perspective, since I started on the making of, and with setting up Wajiros Films, almost everything that we have thought and organized we have done in Cuba, with the same problems as everyone else. So, I think it's also a matter of believing it and not letting the obstacles stop us.

We must have a more universal thinking when we are going to refer, above all, to new technologies and what is happening in social communication today. We have to see it as a country, how we do it in Cuba, but also understanding that precisely these new technologies open us up to a world of possibilities, languages ​​and ways of communicating.

 Ed Augustin: It was super interesting to hear all the perspectives this afternoon. Answering Loly's question, it seems to me that the future of audio-visuals is not in danger, that the quality of audio-visual products is better than ever.

I agree with X when he says that the budget issue is relative. For many films and audio-visuals, I would say the majority, you don't need that much of a budget. Steven Soderbergh, a very good director, a few years ago released a feature film that he shot entirely on an iPhone, and for a decade now, films that have been shot using just a mobile phone have been winning awards at world-class film festivals. So, it seems to me that, like censorship, which can sometimes present difficulties, a limited budget pushes you as an artist, or inspires you to do things differently.

 For me the problem is not that the production quality is low, there are many high-quality audio-visuals that are being produced in the world every year. The fundamental problem is that of distribution, that is, that the highest quality audio-visuals, which enrich us, which make us question the causes and grow, which fill us the most, do not reach the majority of people in the world, because television channels all follow certain patterns, as we mentioned earlier in the panel. And the social media thing for me is horrible because of the algorithm issue, that companies have everything monitored even knowing how old we are.

I've already talked too much, so I'm going to answer only Rafael's first question. Literacy is necessary to consume audio-visual production rationally. I don't much like the word rational, but I think it's necessary, because we're already getting an education anyway. The very act of consuming audio-visuals gives us an education, so it is better to do things properly, because it is already happening. If it is done well, without ideologies or doctrines, if there is an open attitude, it seems to me that school would be a suitable space for it, because one could imagine a class with children or adolescents where the teacher gives a pen drive to each student for the year, and each week they have to watch a movie from a different country or the film that won the Oscar three years ago, or the one that just won top place at the Havana Festival of Latin American cinema, short films, plays, and the kids could go home, or to their friends' houses to watch the audio-visuals, and later, at school, talk about them in a discussion, say what they think and discuss. I think that would be very important; first, for ethical reasons and second, for civic and democratic education. That is education, and it seems to me that without education humanity is lost. People would enjoy it more if they could get hold of first-class audio-visuals, which often do not reach them through social networks or through the television channels themselves.

Roberto Smith: I think the debate shows the complexity of this issue. If we were only talking about cinema, the discussion would be complicated enough. If we add to it the audio-visual concept, everything that we call audio-visual today, the extent of the issue in question is greater still, and if we associate it with the issue of social networks and everything that circulates around them, we are talking about a world which is very difficult to analyze in a forum of necessarily short interventions such as those that are presented in this debate.

On the subject of audio-visual literacy, I said something earlier. We are faced with dealing with this audio-visual world, with the networks, from a very early age and without any instruction, without any preparation. In Cuba and in many other parts of the world, we have coped with concepts such as digital citizenship, the necessary citizen preparation to face this audio-visual universe. In several countries there are efforts to include audio-visual education within general education, there are many initiatives. In Cuba we are just beginning, hooking up with the Ministry of Education, the National Council of Cultural Centers, but there is still a lot to do to provide our people with the basic tools, albeit with the freedom to decide, because personal taste is unquestionable, to assume a critical, personal position and avoid that vulnerability that is so dangerous.

 About commercial and auteur cinema, I had previously commented that we should not see it as simply black and white, viewing them as mutually exclusive, calling the commercial bad and the auteur good. Normally, when we talk about commercial cinema, we confuse it with that aimed at large audiences, which, in a market environment, could be a commercial cinema, but not necessarily. Auteur film has, in general, a greater artistic emphasis, and one assumes that it will have less of an audience; and the truth is what other colleagues have said, you cannot close the door on either one or the other. There are creators who are interested in reaching large audiences, who are looking for a way to do that, sometimes their producers set conditions, they get on television, but sometimes in their vocation they are more driven towards the popular; and there are others who take a different direction and look to challenge their audience via their artistic expression. They are not mutually exclusive, they are part of the diversity of cinema, audio-visual, and I hope they can all find support. I was remembering, in relation to this issue, how many analysts and critics of Cuban cinema reproached the 80s for the type of cinema made at that time, because there were many films that were aimed toward the popular genre. For many, the ICAIC in those days was betraying its tradition of art, auteur cinema. When you look back, whatever opinion you might have, without a doubt you have to be thankful that there are films in our past like Se permuta, Los pájaros tirándole a la escopeta, and many others that still mean a lot to us today.

My personal opinion about the creative environment is that, when we come to analyze the last ten years of audio-visual production, herein there is a story, as always happens, of ups and downs. There are those who see the ups more, there are those who see the downs more, but it is also true that a change is taking place, something that is starting and is gradually changing the audio-visual scene: the approval of Decree Law 373, of the Development Fund for Cuban Cinema, which is currently supporting the production of many works, the creation of similar structures that exist on television, of production service offices, where other support alternatives are appearing, are gradually emerging. I emphasize the gradual shift, because it would be a very serious mistake to see this from a triumphalist position, but opportunities are being created, perhaps not as many as are needed, because we have had a rise in creative talent greater than ourselves, greater than the current capacity to make productions, but little by little opportunities are being created for many filmmakers, and above all, these mechanisms that are based on the selection of the best projects are at least helping and supporting the best work that is being presented.

Rafael Hernández: Many thanks to all the participants and the panelists, who have shown us that it was worth doing a panel not restricted to just film, and not just focused on the issue of digital networks, but instead looking at the specific problems of production, distribution, consumption and the cultural phenomenon that is the audio-visual sphere. Previously we have held debates on cinema, dedicated an edition of TEMAS to film, we just recently had a panel dedicated to social networks a couple of months ago, but the idea of ​​bringing together the issues related to these two subjects has its own substance, and what has been discussed here has a very special value.

I want to highlight the fact that our panelists represent specific aspects of this problem. I have heard many times the older people of the world of film and TV talk about the fact that the main thing, the foundation of all production is in the script, that with a bad script it is very difficult to make a good movie or make a good program. Here we have had Amílcar Salatti, who has the virtue of not only being a good, well-known scriptwriter, but also of having the experience of well-known TV series, soap operas and films. We have had X Alfonso, whom we thank very much for being with us so late, given the time in Portugal. We have heard about problems or inequalities in fiction cinema, but not in video clips and not in documentary film-making either, so that someone like X also represents the talent and work of a well-known musician who can make excellent videos and documentaries. Then Carlos, as the boss of an independent production company, who works with the institutions, in other words, bridges that divide, which is obviously an illusion, between the independent world and the world of the public, institutional sector. To Ed, who is not a British person who has just got off the plane, who has been with us for a while, and who has also contributed practical and concrete knowledge of the relationship between audio-visual production, documentaries, the audio-visual world and journalism, and media in general, since this is a panel dedicated to the audio-visual as art and as a medium of communication. And finally to Roberto Smith, who I do not know if at some point he has made a documentary or a video, but who in any case has the experience of having intimately known the work of Cuban film production for a long time, and continues to be closely involved. And from that perspective, we thank you very much for being able to be with us and participate in this exchange of different views, which have provided a very valuable multi-faceted picture of the audio-visual problem.

Huge thanks to all of you, to those who have actively participated on the panel and in the audience, to those who have listened, and to those who will listen and read our publications through other digital channels in the coming days. As we have been doing for a year now, we are committed to publishing the transcripts and audios of this entire exchange dedicated to audio-visual as art and as a means of communication. I hope you continue to join us.

Traductora: Jackie Cannon