Center for International Policy

Jun. 10, 2006

U.S. director investigated for filming in Cuba

Associated Press

HAVANA—Cuban-American filmmaker Luis Moro expressed his disdain for the long-standing U.S. trade and travel restrictions against Cuba in a very public way: he made a movie there.

Moro's Love and Suicide has been shown recently in U.S. film festivals.

The film, linked as it is to Moro's personal crusade against the U.S. embargo, led U.S. officials to investigate Moro for possible violation of U.S. laws that make it almost impossible for most Americans to legally visit communist Cuba.

If officials act against him, Moro says he will refuse to pay any fines, even if it means jail time.

"It's a farce — the embargo has not worked, and it is not going to work," Moro said of the policy imposed since the early 1960s. "I'm committed to fighting this to the end."

Moro, who left Cuba with his mother at the age of 5, says his campaign doesn't mean he favours the Cuban government or its leader Fidel Castro.

"I'm not pro-Castro. I'm anti-embargo," he said by telephone from Los Angeles.

A writer, actor and producer, Moro travelled to Havana in December 2003 to attend a film festival showing one of his movies.

He took the opportunity to shoot Love and Suicide, directed (and co-written with Moro) by Lisa France, using a small digital camera.

Moro says he hopes Love and Suicide will show in Havana's international film festival in December. If it does, he says he'll be back. Without a U.S. licence.

ASSOCIATED PRESS