The Filmmaker Ian Padrón Announces his Decision to Leave Cuba

The Cuban filmmaker Ian Padrón announced his decision to leave the island and stay in the US in an interview broadcast by CNN Mexico last week. The artist admitted that he, “was tired of fighting, of the complications,” on the island.

The son of film director Juan Padrón, in communication from Los Angeles, said that there must be respect for those who choose a life abroad and reiterated his will to change the situation in Cuba. “There has to be respect for the fact that I can think “differently,” but at the same time love my country. I feel that in many things I have been misunderstood, I have been marginalized, I have been censored many times on the island,” he said. “One has to be very brave to leave Cuba, but be brave also to stay in Cuba,” he added.

The director of numerous videoclips, documentaries and the film Habanastation said he had postponed too long the decision too settle abroad and admitted that it would be difficult to start from scratch after having achived recognition in his own country. “I always wanted to live in Cuba I have come to the United States more than twenty times and have never decided to stay and live here. I felt a social duty, a responsibility to fight to improve my country.”

I sleep peacefully, whoever criticizes me, that’s their right, but I believe that no one is going to resolve my life for me. I have to resolve my life myself, I have to adapt myself and I have to fight for it,” he insisted.

The winner of the award for best video of the year at the latest edition of the Lucas Awards with the video Se bota a matar by the duo Buena Fe, criticized in the same ceremony the official censorship of two of his works (Control, with Juan Formell and los Van Van, and Soy, withBuena Fe), as well as the deficiencies in the process of choosing the winners.