An in-depth conversation with co-director GARY LENNON talking about the making of the riveting documentary CASTRO’S SPIES.
Who would ever have thought that some Irish filmmakers would make a documentary about Fidel Castro, Cuba, and the Cuban spy network employed within the United States? How many people over the decades even considered the possibility of Cuban spies in the United States? And in the 90’s no less! Producers and directors OLLIE ASLIN and GARY LENNON certainly did and with CASTRO’S SPIES give us one of the most fascinating true-life espionage documentaries we’ve ever seen; it is certainly one of the best documentaries of 2022.
Providing historical context back to the days of Cuba’s Spanish occupation through the 1898 war of independence and into the 1950s and the days of Batista when Cuba was the playground for wealthy Americans seeking a tropical gambling and partying retreat, and then diving into Castro’s revolution and the changing political and socio-economic climate both in Cuba and between Cuba and the United States, Aslin and Lennon take us up through the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. In addition to archival newsreel footage and thanks to unprecedented access to the archives of the Cuban Film Institute, we are privy to never before seen historical footage of Castro and the start of his revolution, the Cuban people, and an amazing depth of context to an ever-changing world. Some of the most astounding footage is color footage of Castro coming into Cuba as it’s the first time that has ever appeared on screens anywhere, including Cuba. But then we get to the heart of the film – Cuba’s espionage within the United States and the notorious Cuban 5.
Beyond riveting, CASTRO’S SPIES has interviews with all five of the Cuban 5 – Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labanino, Fernando Gonzalez, and Rene Gonzalez – and takes us into their “missions” starting with how each was recruited and trained and then “placed” undercover in the US in the 1990s for observing and reporting back to Cuba. Most striking is that the Cuban 5 didn’t have the kind of espionage network of support the world has come to expect in the spy world thanks to what we have learned over the years from real-life situations involving the US, Russia, and even Great Britain, as well as the movies. Their support system consisted of payphones and materials from Radio Shack.
And as if the interviews and this intense insight aren’t intriguing enough, CASTRO’S SPIES takes us into FBI surveillance of them as well as their eventual capture and sentencing. First-hand accounts and recollections from the attorneys involved in the trial, both prosecutorial and defense, are still heated and impassioned after all these years. Interviews with wives and family members who were abandoned “in the middle of the night” when the men each disappeared to the US provide very personal insight. Aslin and Lennon even secured an interview with Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark.
A real highlight is an interview with Cuban dissident Jose Basulto who led the group known as Brothers To The Rescue, an organization whose activities ran the gamut from humanitarian efforts to antagonistic acts towards the Castro regime.
Gripping and fascinating from beginning to end, co-director GARY LENNON goes in-depth discussing the development of the idea for the documentary, how to craft this telling “cleanly”, overcoming the challenge of just having talking heads by using footage from a popular Cuban television series from the 1970s – a kind of “Cuban James Bond meets Magnum P.I.” undercover Cuban spy in America – as a means to “show” what happens in the shadows while hearing the Cuban 5 talk about their own experiences and missions, reconstructing an FBI raid that led to the arrest of some of the Cuban 5, the challenges faced by Ollie Aslin who was also the film’s editor as well as co-director, research research and more research from the time spent at the Cuban Film Institute to poring over 100,000+ pages of trial transcripts and then cross-referencing with the interviews given to verify the veracity of facts presented, the subtlety of Damien Lynch’s score, and so much more. And Gary gives us his thoughts as to whether American filmmakers would have had the same access or cooperation that two Irish filmmakers received to bring CASTRO’S SPIES to life.
One of the most interesting conversations you will hear about this subject. One of the most interesting documentaries you will ever see.
TAKE A LISTEN. . .
by debbie elias, exclusive interview 05/18/2022
