This is acknowledged by the experienced Cuban filmmaker Arturo Soto, and it's no surprise. It's an huge undertaking to make films under the current conditions, in a country that isn't content with merely surviving, but rather embraces the challenge of creating amidst Trump's genocidal siege. It was with this unwavering persistence that "The Paradox of the Comedians" was filmed:

"We had 29 days of filming scheduled, but we completed it in 26. I must confess that, in my more than 30 years in this industry, this has been the most difficult, most agonizing, most stressful filming process. Every adjective imaginable could describe it, but we truly pulled it off thanks to the team we had."

Necessary Tributes

Among that stellar team, Arturo Soto began by paying tribute to two pillars of film and cinema on the island whose recent losses we mourn:

“I’d like to offer my own, more personal tribute to Eliseo. First, because I remember when I was still at the Higher Institute of Art (ISA), I didn't dream of making films, and I asked Eliseo to teach the first classes in Film Dramaturgy at ISA. It's quite possible that those were his first steps in teaching film dramaturgy. There wasn't much interest in these things back then, because FAMCA didn't exist yet—I'm talking about 1989 or 1990—and there were only three of us students who enrolled in his course.

“In the end, I was the only one left, and I tried to drop the class, because poor Eliseo wasn't going to go all the way to ISA to teach one student. But from then on, a friendship grew, along with a deep respect for his work and, above all, for his teaching.” He then became a professor at the Film School, and I accompanied him to some end-of-year workshops, reading scripts and giving advice to students. Without a doubt, he was a man who influenced our audiovisual industry, not only in films but also in television series. Let's remember that he was the screenwriter of "Algo más que soñar" (Something More Than Dreaming), a series that had a great impact in Cuba. Later, he was very involved with Chilean cinema, serving as an advisor on important films there, and I believe he was a very valuable man—a friend to me personally and a valuable asset to our film industry.

“In Paula Alí’s case, I’d also like to offer my small and most heartfelt acknowledgment and gratitude, because Paula accompanied me on my first film, my thesis project at film school, back when actors went there without getting paid a penny to help us make movies. Later, she was with me on “Vertical Love,” and I’m going to share an anecdote to remember her with humor:

“In Vertical Love, Paula’s character was heavily made up, extremely heavily made up, and dressed in 1950s style. We were filming a scene at the Calixto García Hospital, and we called a lunch break. She was wearing very heavy costumes, and normally, when actors go to lunch and are wearing those kinds of outfits, they take them off and put on a housecoat so they can eat lightly. She was still wearing her heavy makeup and was a little late changing.” We had to cross practically the entire hospital, which is enormous, because the cafeteria was at the other end. So she came out in her housecoat to cross the hospital, and two nurses grabbed her and said, "Ma'am, the psychiatric ward is this way," and we had to rescue her. "I'm an actress, I'm in a movie." "Ma'am, an actress? Someone saying she's an actress in a hospital?" And we had to rescue her because they wanted to admit her to the psychiatric ward at Calixto García Hospital. And I'd like to remember her with humor, as I hope she would have liked too.”

The team and their challenges…

Arturo Soto then emphasized: “It's a common saying that filmmaking isn't the work of a single person, but of a team, but in this case, I think we achieved it thanks to the work of a very cohesive, very empathetic, and very sensitive team, given the conditions under which we were working.

“I want to especially acknowledge my production manager, Olga María Fernández, and her team, who, under the most difficult conditions, were always there for me personally, and thanks to Olga we are all here, alive. I couldn't have done it without a production team, a directing team, the specialists, all the technicians. I remember an anecdote: one day a pair of glasses broke, an actor dropped the little screw, and everyone, absolutely everyone, scrambled to the floor of the Cubanacán studios to find it. That day I realized I had a team, that I had support, and that people were determined to make the film under extremely challenging conditions.” Difficult times: we too had our share of trouble, complicated days, complicated nights, with transfers, with artificial rain, and I just want to thank, thank, thank, and I will never tire of thanking the team that accompanied me.

He also thanked the Mexican and Dominican co-producers who also put their best effort into this project.

From Director to Actor…

He also confessed to the press what led him to take on a role in the film:

“It wasn’t for pleasure, nor for enjoyment, because with a film under the circumstances we’re talking about, the last thing I would have wanted was to be acting, as it’s truly very difficult. I don’t have the talent or the genius of Woody Allen or Orson Welles to do that kind of thing. But it was out of necessity: there was a character, a count, whom we had originally envisioned as a Spaniard. In the first stage, we found a Spanish actor who came, rehearsed the entire film, and then had to leave. In the second stage, thanks to Pichy, we also found another Spanish actor who was willing to pay for everything—his flight, his stay, everything—and we had to tell him not to come because the film would be halted again. Under those circumstances, I couldn’t even bring anyone in because we didn’t know what was going to happen with the film, and in the end, I had to make that decision for a pragmatic reason.”

Imagen

The Genesis…

Regarding the origin and journey of “The Paradox of the Comedians” to become the film he just finished shooting, the director explained:

“This project began as a play. Faced with the impossibility of staging it in a theater, I wrote the screenplay,” Soto told the press, adding that a few years passed before he met Alexis Triana, President of ICAIC, who told him: “This is the least expensive project I have.” From there, while we began preparing the project, two years went by, and in 2025 we started preparing the film. This was a film that was prepared three times. Twice we had to stop, due to circumstances that many of us are familiar with, some internal, others external. The third time was the charm, but we always lost people, and we had to bring in other people.

“Each time we prepared the film, we did it in less time, because we were so eager to get out there and film. This last preparation took 10 days. Preparing a film in 10 days, with new staff who didn't know it, because we lost assistants, our set decorator, essential people in the film's production, and the new people had to learn the film from scratch.

“Furthermore, it's a complex film, spanning different eras, with intricate costumes and sets. I must also acknowledge the loyalty of the actors, and of many specialists: cinematographers, sound engineers, people who turned down other jobs and waited a year to make this film. We worked, except for one, with all the actors we had scheduled since July of last year, including the extras.

“We had to change the entire set design of the film, mainly due to fuel issues.” This was a film that was going to be realistic, typical in the sense that we had all the locations outdoors and we had to adapt to the circumstances, to the conditions, and make a complete change in the set design. Many of the locations were used without losing coherence, without changing a single line of the script, and many of those spaces were located in the Cubanacán studios. It didn't lose coherence because the main character is someone who may suffer from a certain degree of schizophrenia, and in that sense, the man lives between reality and fiction.”

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff