Fantasma Material (Material Ghost) was born disturbing a specter: that of an unlocalized type of cinema, one that seeks its sovereignty of expression outside the fixed coordinates of form and production, one that is propelled toward self-invention by the desire to exist as a celebration of human imagination. A type of cinema that manifests itself as a transnational phenomenon, for the most part outside the bounds of commercial circuits and the legitimacy of auteur filmmaking. These films, for which there is still no definition or label, could be described as the lingua franca of a contemporary and imperfect type of cinema, one less interested in “quality” than it is in exploring the horizon of possibilities to give way to a form of termite art, as free as possible from preconceptions. Purist views are rendered useless when this type of cinema declares that the resources of genre filmmaking are just as worthy as the documentary approach, the use of archival footage is as good as the wild ideas of the imagination, and the tools of realism are no better than those of the irrational realm. Its quest for freedom places it in opposition to the fascisms of the present, which is why it exists under the threat of persecution, censorship, and erasure. It is dependent on fragile networks of solidarity and exchange, of constant reinvention in terms of its political significance, which is why it is an endangered art form.

In an attempt to grasp this specter, this first issue of our magazine begins in the place that we know best and from which we speak: Cuban cinema, which over the past twenty years has become an exercise in the deconstruction of the totalitarian condition, an awakening from the spell of state-controlled/popular art to become a form of free creation. The specter of Nicolás Guillén Landrián, an author from the past who inspires rebellions in the present, receives special attention in four substantial texts that contemplate his legacy. We also put forward an attempt, in the voice of Cuban filmmakers and critics, to define present-day cinema on the island, a territory that finds itself adrift and seeks to re-imagine itself through images, beyond the official catalog and the approved versions of stories.  One model of what a more expansive Cuban cinema could be like is the collective project coordinated by filmmaker Rafael Ramírez that is reproduced here, one that is obsessed both with the ways the past extends into the present and with what has not yet come to be, even though it could.

In a similar vein, we pay homage to Gilberto Pérez, a key thinker and writer about cinema, whose suggestion that we understand the moving image as a “material ghost” is a decisive force behind our efforts. His idea of cinema as a specter and co-inhabitant of our existence is a doorway to understanding the type of cinema that we dared to describe earlier. One in which the films accompany us during both our dream and wakeful states; they complement the relationship we build with our own lives and mobilize us to view the world as an abstraction. This last concept, which is fundamental to engaging in action to transform reality, brings us back to the specter at the beginning: we need these ghosts in order to produce something new.

Dean Luis Reyes and José Luis Aparicio Ferrera 

The Editors