Los Abuelos Se Rebelan: TV from Cuba, Island in Goliath’s Sea

The Stone’s Throw Series was made in response to Tele Marti in 1989. We transmitted one hour of the compilations on the Deep Dish satellite, in our counter programming to what the US was sending to Cuba-- illegally according to international telecommunications regulations. In addition to the satellite transmission we put together 4 programs that were installed and/or screened in a variety of art/film places-- Artists Space, Wexner Center, ICA Boston, etc.

I always loved this telenovela.

One of the best written (and shot) programs we saw when Monica and I screened some 200 hours (sometimes in fast forward) of Cuban dramas, comedies, concerts, kids shows and news programs.

This is a comedic and rather subversive look at the Cuban housing crisis during the “special period".

Now that I am a grandmother I wince at some of the heretofore humorous tensions.

I hope Sol Maria looks at this and remembers that it was sometimes hard but also sometimes fun when I used to have to sleep on her “canapé” for my housing while I was teaching at UCSD.

Sol’s Dad Sings in the Ukrainian Village Voices

Sol Maria and Molly Share a Violin at Bread and Puppet to a crowd of 60,000

Molly and Sol are at 38:10 on this video.

Meeting in La Jolla

This was taken possibly at the Che Cafe in La Jolla. Me and Sol and Cynthia Lopez. I can't remember who the person behind Sol is-- perhaps Greg Landau's daughter Nicole(?) from Nicaragua?

Cynthia is now the Film Czar of New York City--She was appointed by Mayor DeBlazio to head the New York City Film Office.  Any production made in the city has to get permission (and strict guidelines) from her office. Cynthia worked at the Centro for Puerto Rican Studies and then at Deep Dish TV as program director and for a while as acting director.

I have no idea what we are eating. Perhaps peas from Ezra's garden?

Waiting for the Invasion in 1983

In the fall of 1983, after the invasion of Grenada, many of us thought there would be a similar invasion of Nicaragua. Skip Blumberg, Karen Ranucci, Joel Kovel, Eddie Becker, Karen Ranucci, Joan Braderman snd I flew to Managua to document the US citezens who were in solidarity with the Sandinista Revolution and were expecting to be attacked by their own government. We returned with the footage and Shulea Cheang and I edited it into Waiting for the Invasion, which we finished in January. My favorite screening story was about the Iowa State Fair. We were approached by a group in solidarity with Nicaragua who were from Iowa and wanted to show a film in a booth at the Iowa fair that next summer. They said they had screened dozens of films about Central America and Nicaragua and that our film was the only one that they felt could speak to a crowd of Iowa farmers, so they showed it in a loop for an entire week. I think it was all the corn plants that were in our film that hooked them in. In terms of stopping the invasion, well, we did what we could. Unfortunately the US kept up with their invasion-- only much more covertly than Grenada. The Contra War ranks with the wars against the Cherokees and other tribes as an example of just how cruel and heartless the National Security State can be.