Jurakán, A Film Series: Cuba, Living Between Hurricanes

Cuba, Living Between Hurricanes looks at the effects of climate across the centuries on a Caribbean island sucked into global markets for its commodity crops – tobacco, coffee and above all, sugar. It looks at how sugar changed the landscape, through deforestation and soil exhaustion. About the growing threat from climate change, and the move towards reforestation, ecotourism and sustainable farming.

This is the third film of the film series Jurakán, curated and hosted by film professor Mary Leonard. Jurakán is part of the programming of the Fotofocus Biennial.

The screening of the film will be followed by a conversation with director Michael Chanan and producer and co-writer Jean Stubbs recorded especially for this event, and a reception

The Series:

Jurakán is the name given by the Tainos, the indigenous people of the Caribbean, to the god of chaos and discord who controls the often turbulent weather that affects the region. The images and narratives that predominate about the Caribbean today often evoke images of  the sun, but representations of wind and water recur in Taino imagery more than those of the sun, and remain part of the imaginary of the people who live in the region. The word hurricane, derived from Jurakán, refers to storms that originate in the Caribbean, unlike other words, like cyclone or monsoon, that describe storms with turbulent winds in other parts of the world. This series explores what hurricanes are, their mythological and metaphorical associations, what it is like to experience them sensorially; factual, scientific and practical information about them; as well as artistic/poetic representations of hurricanes in cultural context. It looks at how they signify and how everything that they mean resonates in Caribbean societies in multifarious ways. It will consist of four presentations. In each, there will be a conversation and question and answer session with the audience following the film in which the ideas described above will be explored.

The Director:

Michael Chanan is a documentary film maker and scholar. His most recent film is Cuba: Living Between Hurricanes (2019). He is currently working on a new book about cultural commodities and creative labour. He has a range of special interests, including Latin American cinema, documentary, the film soundtrack, and the social history of music. In 2000, he was Visiting Professor in the Literature Program at Duke University, USA, and then joined the University of the West of England where he was Professor of Cultural Studies, 2002-2007.

The Producer and Co-Writer:

Professor Jean Stubbs was founding co-director of the Commodities of Empire project and a founder member of the Commodity Frontiers Initiative; Associate Fellow at the Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) (School of Advanced Study, University of London), and the Institute for the Americas (University College London); and Professor Emerita of London Metropolitan University, where she directed the Caribbean Studies Centre (2002-2009). Her work on contemporary Cuban migration explores how commodity and nation-branding have shaped the new Cuban diasporic mobilities. Her more recent interest in commodity frontiers and environmental history led her to co-produce the documentary Cuba: Living Between Hurricanes.

The Curator and Host:

Mary Leonard is full professor in the English Department of the University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez Campus where she teaches courses in film, media and literature. She is also the founder and director of the university’s film program, the UPRM Film Certificate. She has presented her work at conferences in many countries, published articles in peer-reviewed journals as well as in local publications in Puerto Rico, been invited to lecture and present Puerto Rican films at universities in the U.S. and in Trinidad, and been interviewed numerous times on television and radio programs. She has organized and directed conferences on visual narration at the University of Puerto Rico (2005 & 2007), and on Caribbean film in the Dominican Republic (2020). She has also produced/coordinated and/or supported the production of numerous films made by students and graduates of the UPRM film program, and other filmmakers since 2007. She is the co-founder and co-host of Caribbean Film Forum, a series of online conversations on topics related to film in the context of the Caribbean (2021 – present). She is also one of the recipients of a National Endowment of the Humanities grant for the 2022 year which will fund the establishment of an Oral History Center at UPRM with a documentary film production component.