Film Screening and Discussion | The Padilla Affair

In 1971, Cuban state security agents arrested the poet Heberto Padilla, accused of being a counterrevolutionary. Faced with international pressure, the Cuban government forced him to incriminate himself in front of the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists. This documentary, directed by Pavel Giroud, recuperates filmed footage, buried in a Cuban governmental archive for fifty years, of Padilla's recanting.

The writer’s mea culpa, the recording of which is shown for the first time to the public, marks the narrative line of a story including the testimonies of Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar, Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, Jean-Paul Sartre, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Jorge Edwards, and Fidel Castro.

"The Padilla Affair" ("El caso Padilla") is Pavel Giroud's nineteenth film.

Host or Publisher FIU Cuban Research Institute