Propaganda for children

Where can young New York cinephiles, say ages 10 or 11, see independent films that are refreshing and creative, but still age appropriate? The New York International Children’s Film Festival presents “Viva Cuba.”
Described as a haunting tale, in Spanish with English subtitles, about a boy and a girl, about 10 or 11, who run away in an attempt to prevent the girl’s mother from taking her out of the country and destroying their friendship.
The young couple decides to go to the girl’s father to convince him not to sign the papers granting her mother permission to take her out of Cuba. Their journey takes them across the island; Cuba is of course beautiful, and the film paints the expected portrait of an idyllic paradise. The people are happy, you don’t see; lines–for food, or transportation, you don’t see the police presence. In fact, from the trailer, it appears that Cuban children are free to travel without interference from train conductors, taxi driver’s, or police.
You don’t see the despair lined faces of the weary populace, you don’t see the crumbling substandard housing. (Note: the Communist Mother’s home appears nicer than that of the girl’s opposition Mother’s home.)
The clips available at YouTube don’t reveal whether or not the film contains images of political rallies or pro-castro billboards; here the propaganda is more subtle, and for the uninitiated, it appears just as one reviewer describes it, a “quirky” coming of age story.
Interesting choice of words, since thanks to fidel, too many young girls in the real Cuba are forced to sell their innocence to the highest bidder, and come of “age” in an very ugly way, much too soon.
In an early speech, from January 21, 1959 where coincidentally, fidel announces, “I am going to propose to the board of the July 26 Movement that it appoint comrade raul castro second in command of the July 26 Movement,” he also said, “Our revolution must be defended as a patrimony of Cuba, if not of America. The honest men of America, the honest newsmen of the continent, the peoples who are our friends–we must ask them to defend our revolution, not allow it to be slandered in an attempt to destroy it to the detriment of not just Cuba, but America.”
The New York Times has been a faithful friend to the dictator, and by show casing this film for children, so is the New York Academy Foundation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the tax payer funded New York State Council on the Arts.
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