Documentary on Lezama Lima Draws Full House in Miami

This week, the documentary "Lezama Lima: Soltar la Lengua", directed by Cuban filmmaker Ernesto Fundora, captivated a full audience at the Coral Gables Museum in Florida. The event brought together scholars, artists, and members of the Cuban diaspora to honor one of the most prominent writers in 20th-century Latin American literature.

Fundora expressed his joy on social media following the screening, which took place on Wednesday, the 9th: "A packed house at the showing of the documentary 'Lezama Lima Soltar la Lengua'. Thank you to the Coral Gables Museum, to José Prats Sariol for his engaging talk, to Odalys Salina for her rendition of a song with Lezama's verses, to Mamushka, the poet's grandniece, and to an exceptional audience that showered us with warmth and attention. Miami remembers Lezama. Congratulations."

Commemorating Lezama Lima

The screening marked a dual anniversary: the 50th anniversary of José Lezama Lima's death—he passed away in Havana on August 9, 1976—and the 60th anniversary of the publication of his novel Paradiso. The book, released in Cuba in 1966, was soon pulled from Havana's bookstores after the regime's cultural bureaucracy deemed it "pornographic" due to its sexual content and homosexual references, notably in Chapter VIII.

The event featured literary critic and author José Prats Sariol, who discussed the poet's legacy; singer Odalys Salina, who performed a song featuring Lezama's verses; and Mamushka, Lezama's grandniece, whose presence added a familial and emotional touch to the evening.

An Artistic Tribute Amidst Censorship

Produced between 2018 and 2019 by Video Vueltas Producciones SA de CV with support from TV UNAM, the film is a feature-length tribute to Lezama Lima's life. It includes interviews shot in Miami, Havana, and other locations with figures like Cintio Vitier, Fina García Marruz, César López, Anton Arrufat, and Silvio Rodríguez. The Coral Gables Museum describes it as a work that "explores Lezama's life, literary vision, and enduring legacy," preserving "first-hand testimonies from those who knew him personally."

The screening was part of the series "Persecuted: Artists Censored by Communist Cuba," which traces a line from the censorship of the 1960s—exemplified by Lezama, whose homosexuality, Catholicism, and advocacy for literary independence led to his marginalization during the "Grey Quinquennial" and the Military Units to Aid Production (UMAP)—to contemporary repression.

Ernesto Fundora's Journey and Challenges

The first installment of the series was the documentary "Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara: Estamos Conectados," shown on August 5, 2026, coinciding with the anniversary of the 1994 Maleconazo uprising, with Otero Alcántara himself, a co-founder of the San Isidro Movement, in attendance despite being imprisoned since July 2021 with a five-year sentence.

Fundora, based in Mexico City and a graduate of Havana's Higher Institute of Art (ISA) and the International School of Film and Television (EICTV) in San Antonio de los Baños, has directed over 90 music videos and around 20 documentaries since establishing Video Vueltas Producciones in 1996.

His recent career has been marked by violence: in May 2026, members of the Mexican Communist Party physically attacked him during a screening of the Otero Alcántara documentary in Coyoacán, hurling insults like "Damn worms!" alongside slogans supporting Fidel and Raúl Castro.

Fundora sums up the Cuban situation harshly: "We are held hostage by a group of satanists. The Cuban nation is hijacked by a group of satanists." The full house at the Coral Gables Museum last Tuesday was, in this context, a cultural rebuttal to decades of censorship and repression: Miami remembered Lezama with the care and affection that the Cuban regime denied him in life.