The ICAIC Latinoamericano News: education and revolutionary formation in Cuba (1960-1990)

Abstract

This research project has as its object and source the editions of the Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano, a Cuban newsreel that was produced in Cuba between 1960 and 1990, recently digitized in France and made available on the website of the Institut National de L'Audiovisuel (INA). From an approach that will focus on news, reports and reports focused on education in Cuba, in the context of the government instituted by the 1959 Revolution, we will try to analyze how this theme was treated by the state newsreel over three decades, following the transformations experienced by the regime and society, also represented in the film material. We start from the hypothesis that the valorization of education, in all spheres and contours that it assumes in the Cuban scene of this period (massive reach, political propaganda, disciplining of bodies and military formation, diffusion of nationalist and socialist values, defense of the conjugation between study and work, etc.) was a constant concern of the government and was highlighted by the ICAIC newsreel. The Noticiero editions bring chronicles of the daily lives of young people and children, projects, programs and campaigns aimed, in large part, at the formation of the "revolutionary" citizen, along the lines of what was considered the ideal of a Cuban "new man", in a socialist regime. The speeches and imaginary mobilized by the film representations were not exempt, however, from the oscillations and adaptations required by the institutionalization process of socialism and by the changes that occurred in the country, issues that we intend to address in our analysis. This audiovisual collection, registered as "Memory of the World Register" by Unesco, is a rich material for analyzing the challenges, policies and impasses of the Cuban government and society, without disregarding relevant formal and aesthetic issues, such as the degree of experimentalism and the techniques inaugurated by Noticiero (from advertising, the extensive use of collage, quotes, eclectic soundtracks, etc.), which gave it an interesting polysemy. Thus, we will analyze this corpus taking the audiovisual as a historical document that must be analyzed in all its aspects (political, aesthetic, discursive) and questioned based on questions about the governmental options and dilemmas experienced in Cuba after the revolution, in this period initiated by the political institutionalization process and ended with the disintegration of the socialist bloc. (AU)