Over almost twenty years, I visited Havana three times, accompanying my wife along with a delegation of her colleagues from the Sundance Institute. Since the 1980s, Robert Redford, founder of the Sundance Institute and Sundance Film Festival, has reached across the ninety miles from the continental U.S. to the island nation of Cuba, extending a hand of friendship, one artist to other artists.
Much has changed since that first visit in 1999. In that year, Cuba was still suffering a kind of emotional withdrawal, a result of the Soviet Union's collapse which denied Cuba the economic and cultural support it had enjoyed since the early 1960s.
Sixteen years later in 2015, there were dramatic changes. Colonial buildings were being renovated into luxury hotels and retail spaces. Cruise ships docked in the harbor and U.S. airlines announced nonstop service from many American cities. Encouraging those efforts, the Obama administration signaled a desire to move away from the isolationist polic…
Much has changed since that first visit in 1999. In that year, Cuba was still suffering a kind of emotional withdrawal, a result of the Soviet Union's collapse which denied Cuba the economic and cultural support it had enjoyed since the early 1960s.
Sixteen years later in 2015, there were dramatic changes. Colonial buildings were being renovated into luxury hotels and retail spaces. Cruise ships docked in the harbor and U.S. airlines announced nonstop service from many American cities. Encouraging those efforts, the Obama administration signaled a desire to move away from the isolationist polic…