Recasting ideology, recreating hegemony: Critical debates about film in contemporary Cuba

New creative forms of engagement between artists and official institutions have opened up in Cuba as a result of changing relationships between state and society in the post-Soviet period. This article looks at critical debates about Cuban film as a site where filmmakers, ordinary Cubans, and the state collaborate to reincorporate alternative expressions into dominant ideological frameworks. But new modes of incorporation are incomplete and partial, as critical films also give rise to ideas that cannot be reduced to the agenda of the socialist state. The article is based on textual analysis of film and detailed ethnographic material collected during nine months of field research in Cuba.