Is Cuba softening stance on arts taboos?

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The Spanish daily El País reports a potential cultural ``opening’’ in Cuba, following protests earlier this year from Cuban writers and artists.

``The intellectuals’ mobilization allowed the start of a debate in cultural institutions and universities about taboo themes,’’ writes Mauricio Vincent, El Pais’ Havana correspondent.

Such taboos included examinations of the ``cultural Stalinism’’ of the 1970s and the ongoing censorship of Cuban films by the Cuban Television and Radio Institute. Programs judged not within ``revolutionary parameters’’ have been excluded from state-run television.

Only this month did the Cuban educational station run the 1993 comedy-drama ‘Strawberry and Chocolate’ co-directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío. The movie explores revolutionary Cuba’s intolerance of homosexuals, still a sensitive theme. Its appearance on the small screen follows the TV airing last month of several other films with a critical vision of the contemporary Cuban reality.

Posted by Patrick J. McDonnell in Buenos Aires