Oliver Stone and Fidel, HBO and CBC

A nice interview with Oliver Stone today in The Globe and Mail (http://tinyurl.com/ytzux) about his Castro documentary, Comandante. It had been slated to air on HBO, but the network yanked it from the schedule because it was too favourable a portrait. Commandante will premier instead on CBC Newsworld's The Passionate Eye March 28 at 10 pm. (Last I checked, The Passionate Eye documentary series is available only on Newsworld's Canadian service, not Newsworld International.)

snips:

"The Americans have a view of Castro that is unfortunately rigid," Stone says, the restaurant clatter amplified by his phone. "He is a man who's seen a lot. Let's give him his chance to speak. I think they're worried they might like him."

...

Somehow believing this sort of material might be greeted warmly back home, Stone stepped on a land mine. To some Americans, particularly those within the powerful Cuban exile community, which has the ability to move the vote in the swing state of Florida and therefore can grab the attention of federal politicians, the concept of a soft portrait of Castro is just short of criminal. In the days after Comandante screened for the first time at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, the local Cuban exile community began a fierce campaign to have it suppressed.

...

"Every street we walked down , there was a furor, an excitement, people rushing out to see him, lining up to see him, and I think we could have gone to 20 streets and found that kind of reaction," he says.

"If you just look at the faces, you'll see it. I hope that comes through a bit in the documentary. I'm sure there's some discontent that I'm not showing in their faces, but you don't generally see that kind of enthusiasm for a presidential candidate, unless he's John Kennedy or Bill Clinton. I don't know that you'd see it spontaneously for George Bush. I don't think George Bush would walk around any street in America. I think he'd be scared to death with what he'd get."

.. in 1998, at a dedication of a new school in Holguin. It was considered a great honor to have him come to their city for a dedication of an elementary school, a celebration ritual that Castro has repeated on every one of his birthdays, Aug 13, since 1959.