Three women who dream and make a country. A conversation with Cuban film director Fernando Fraguela.
By EDGAR ARIEL – December 15th, 2023
RIALTA

Fernando Fraguela makes something clear: Women Who Dream a Country (2022) is a film made for the present, yes, but especially for the future. Women Who Dream a Country, with testimonies from activist Daniela Rojo, poet Katherine Bisquet, and art historian and professor Anamely Ramos, is an attempt—an attempt, so to speak—to get somewhere. But that other place is a dream. It is the dream of a country.
The documentary aims to be a negatoscope that allows us to examine the X-ray of three women who, in that process of dreaming, survive within the violence of a system. Dreaming is doing. Dreaming is also knowing that the body does not distinguish between a real and an imagined threat. Three women who live under threat. But three women who know, as Roberto Saviano says in The Brave Are Alone, that "the threat only exists as long as it gravitates."
Fernando, under what conditions did you shoot Women Who Dream a Country?
Women Who Dream a Country was shot while I was already living in Spain. It was a very small team, both in Havana and in Madrid and Miami, the three cities where Daniela Rojo, Katherine Bisquet, and Anamely Ramos were filmed, respectively. The film had a very small budget and was also mainly dependent on the complicated schedules of Anamely and Katherine, who were in the throes of emigration. At that time, Anamely was trying to return to Cuba and began her "Right to Return" campaign. In Daniela's case, we did it with the risk involved in having a filming crew in the house of an opponent who had already been under State Security surveillance at various times.
You once said that this is a film “that is subject to the haste with which it was made.” What do you mean by this?
Due to the topic it addresses and the mutual interest of Rialta in the production and mine in the direction, we tried to premiere it as soon as possible. I am sure this urgency influences some aspects of the final quality of the work, but I also feel that the film is very connected with the spirit of San Isidro, 27N, and even the popular demonstrations that took place that summer [of 2021] due to the power outages throughout Cuba, which we still carried with us. I think that spirit permeates the film, giving it a certain vibe, a certain charge that no longer exists today. I mean that many of us have lost a bit of hope for an imminent fall of the dictatorship, compared to the lethargy and apathy that is now felt in various sectors of the opposition and, unfortunately, in Cuba as well.
Dean Luis Reyes has said that Women Who Dream a Country "condenses a time that we still want to understand." How do you envision that time?
Yes, I feel the same as Dean Luis, both at the time of making the film and in its subsequent reception. However, the very exercise of making it is part of that attempt to understand. I believe the work itself functions both as a reference document for the future and as a means of understanding that process that was lived in Cuba for those not residing on the island, and, on another level, as raw material for an in-depth analysis of what those processes constituted and where they have brought us.

For her part, Daniela Rojo confessed in a live broadcast that she accepted to be one of the protagonists of the film because it is necessary to "tell the truth and bring it to all corners of the world in whatever format, and say what is happening in Cuba, how the dictatorship is oppressing people, the repression, and everything that is happening with [political] prisoners. I think it is the duty of every Cuban who retains their freedom." How do you relate what she says to Cuban cinema today?
Relating to my previous answer: we were living at a time when we needed to "do for Cuba." In my case, I am a filmmaker, not an activist, and since around 2018, part of my work has been focused on that need to tell Cuba's story in order to achieve its freedom. However, for a long time, Cuban cinema has occupied the place of a non-existent or highly repressed and controlled independent press. For several years now, Cubans have had the opportunity to see all the repression, violence, and crimes committed by the dictatorship daily. Independent Cuban cinema and filmmakers do not need to bear that responsibility anymore and can approach Cuba from another perspective, especially now that most of us are experiencing migration processes. In my case, I am much more interested in addressing the idea of Cuba's future, once the dictatorship falls.
I feel that the documentary, more than being made from a feminine perspective, has a feminist character. Could you clarify this distinction?
I do not think the film has a feminine perspective. Coincidentally, the filmmaking team was all men, which is unusual in my work. It does have that feminist character; in fact, that is where the work started. The Cuban dictatorship is extremely machista, and seeing so many women being protagonists in this struggle made a great impression on me; besides, I do not believe in patriarchal societies and aspire to an inclusive society for the future of my country. I even desire a government with a feminine perspective.
Women Who Dream a Country was recently presented at the INSTAR Film Festival. What importance do you attach to this festival?
I love the INSTAR Film Festival; I connected with what they were doing from their first edition. In fact, I had the dream of holding an independent festival in Cuba, especially with the dissolution of the always imperfect Muestra Joven. It is a contradiction to try to create a space of freedom under the premises and spaces of the dictatorship itself. While the festival can improve in many aspects—I even think more events like this should be held within Cuba—this year's edition has been excellent, and the opportunity to see this type of cinema in so many cities, on different continents, and in front of such a varied audience, is an unparalleled privilege both for the filmmakers and the audience who manage to attend.
Daniela Rojo, Katherine Bisquet, and Anamely Ramos dream of a country. Dreaming is also a way of doing. They dream and build a country. Do you share this idea with me?
Yes, of course. They are protagonists of the film not only because they dream of that free country that most of us aspire to, but because of everything they did and do in building that dream. Daniela summarizes it in a way that is very clear and revealing to me. No one is going to liberate Cuba for us and our descendants will be just as much victims as we have been tomorrow. I would like future generations not to be deprived of their country as we are today. But I also do not want them to be indoctrinated in school, or raped in boarding schools, or tortured in military service, nor suffer so many other crimes that, unfortunately, Cuban society has normalized in its attempt to survive.
You can read the original note here