MDFF 2021 - Castro's Spies
The truth lies in the shadows
Interview with Writer/Director/Producer Ollie Aslin, Gary Lennon
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
OLLIE: Thanks. Spies play a huge role in popular culture. A life in the shadows is what we grew up watching and reading. We’ve both always loved the spy genre, so we leapt at the opportunity to meet the real-life versions of these fascinating and elusive characters. While this is of course a documentary, we approached it like a drama film. We wanted to make a film that was first and foremost a spy-thriller, rather than a historical document. And at the core of any decent spy thriller are the characters. That was perhaps the most attractive thing for us in making this film. The characters are incredible, on both sides of the story.
GARY: This is real life, not a well-crafted Hollywood script. It struck us quite profoundly that most of us lead quiet normal lives, but the characters in our film all led extraordinary lives. And the stories they were telling were remarkable. We were also struck by the sense of duty all the characters felt to their cause, be they pro or anti-Castro. In short, it was a film we felt we had to make.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
GARY: People should watch this film if they want to be entertained by a rollicking good spy thriller. Also I think it’s a really rare opportunity to get a glimpse of those that work in the world of espionage. Most often in documentaries these characters are whistle-blowers or have defected or switched sides. In this film these characters are quite different. They stuck to their cause, regardless of the consequences. I think understanding the human cost of this is fascinating for the audience.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
OLLIE: The most universal theme in this film is love, or more specifically, the love of your country. Both the pro and anti-Castro characters LOVE Cuba and is at the heart of all of their motivations and actions. But the nuance in this story and the difference between these two polarised groups of characters is ‘which’ Cuba they love. And this is as simple as Cuba before or after the 1959 Castro led Revolution. The characters in our film would do anything for their version of “Cuba”, regardless of the the price they may have to pay.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
GARY: The story structure always remained the same. This is a story that we knew the end of. We had a 10,000 page trial document that detailed every minute part of the Cuban’s time spying in the U.S. But it was how we told this story that was constantly evolving. The first cut of this film was really long, about 3 ½ hours. We had to tell the history but our focus was on the human stories that lived this history. So we paired back on the history to allow the personal stories to take the primary role. We framed the history through our characters experiences.
OLLIE: Something that was constantly evolving was the visual style of this film. These guys by the very nature of their jobs did not have visual recordings of their work – they lived in the shadows. We first discussed reconstructions and mapped these out. You can see some of this in the final cut, with the FBI raid and the spy lairs in Miami. But weaved throughout the film is this fantastic footage from a 1970’s Cuban spy TV show called ‘In Silence it Had to be Done’. This came about really organically. During an interview for our film in Havana with Fernando, one of the spies, he mentioned this Cuban TV show. I’d never heard of it before. He said it influenced him in becoming a spy, when he watched it he realised he could serve his country in such a way. I got my hands on the series and fell in love with it. It’s quite kitsch, but it was a huge TV series in Cuba in the spies formative years and acted as an inspiration for them. A bit like a 1970’s Cuban James Bond. We were able to visually tell so much of the spies story through this, which gives our film a really unique style. This is far from something we had planned in our initial visualisation of the film.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
GARY: We have been really lucky to receive overwhelmingly positive feedback from both industry and audience reviews. With headlines including; “compelling”, “utterly thrilling”, “a remarkable piece of work", "slick, gripping documentary", "as tense as any John le Carré novel", “as thrilling as any espionage movie”. So we’re really happy that people are seeing our film as the spy thriller that we intended to make. For anyone that’s interested, here’s a selection of some recent Castro’s Spies reviews: https://www.gambitpictures.com/castrosspiesreviews
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
OLLIE: I think what has stood out for us the most is that people have complemented us on the sense of balance in the film. The story at the heart of this film is really polarising. Both the pro and anti-Castro supporters stand firm in their lifelong beliefs. We approached the film with no political agenda and wanted to tell the story as it was lived by the characters that inhabited it. A recent review from FilmInk summed up our film as, “a distinctly neutral standpoint to the heated political tensions between the U.S. and Cuba”.
GARY: We’re really delighted that people seem to have got to the core of the story that we wanted to tell. So much work and effort goes into making films like this, with the huge help of a large team of people. So I guess we’ve been delighted rather than surprised by the feedback.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
GARY: No doubt like every filmmaker we made this film to be seen by as large an audience as possible. We want to entertain and capture the imagination of people with this incredible story. So having this on your site will hopefully help to build that audience. To see where Castro’s Spies is playing next check out our website: https://www.gambitpictures.com/watch-castros-spies
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
OLLIE: We’re gathering great momentum on the festival circuit, so for starters we’d love to show this film in as many festivals as we can around the globe. Our Gala World Premiere Festival, screening to a live audience of 100’s, was moved online. And festivals that followed this also had to move online due to covid restrictions. The film is going back into cinemas now and we’d love to see more in cinema festival screenings. So please any festival programmers / directors reading this that think this film is a good fit for them, please do get in touch. On writing this we’re yet to have a confirmed North American Festival, that’s a real big one for this film, so we’d love to get it screened over there.
GARY: We’re also open to reviews / interviews from journalists. Beyond that our sales reps (Submarine Entertainment) are handling world sales, so we’d love to hear from distributors/networks/streamers interested in taking Castro’s Spies on for their territories.
Anyone looking to get in touch please contact us on info@gambitpictures.com
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
GARY: We really hope people are entertained. And that people get to immerse themselves in a stranger than fiction story that they would otherwise perhaps never have learnt of.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
OLLIE: What would you be willing to risk for your country?
Would you like to add anything else?
GARY: Tensions are at a real high between Cuba and the U.S. at the moment. We’d love for people to watch this film to understand the context and history behind these tensions. Everyone knows Cuba; Fidel, Che, Cigars, Buena Vista Social Club – people have maybe heard of the Bay of Pigs. But how much do people really know about this small communist island, 80 miles south of the U.S?
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
GARY: We have in production a feature length documentary called Piano Dreams, about child piano prodigies in China. It’s Hoop Dreams meets Spelling Bee.
OLLIE: We have just finished developing a slate of 6 feature length documentaries for our national film board, Screen Ireland. Which includes; Beatle Island – An island off the west coast of Ireland bought by John Lennon, and inhabited by a bunch of hippies called ‘The Tribe of the Sun’. I Dream in Photos – the story of Pulitzer Prize winning Irish photojournalist Cathal McNaughton, that quit “the best job in the world”, aged just 40. We also entered our first drama script development – Strikers Sirloin and Semtex. A drama adaptation of our ratings hit documentary In League with Gaddafi – The story of a faked Irish football squad sent to Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya to play his national team, all to the backdrop of beef and arms deals. We hope to go into production with these projects soon. And we’re always on the lookout for new incredible stories.
Interview: July 2021
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
Castro's Spies
Length:
1:43:00
Director/Producer
Ollie Aslin, Gary Lennon
Founder of Gambit Pictures, GARY LENNON is a versatile director & producer with extensive experience of foreign and domestic filming on a broad range of documentary genres. OLLIE ASLIN having spent over 20 years as an award-winning editor directed and produced his debut feature length documentary, Castro’s Spies.
Looking for:
film festival directors, buyers, journalists, distributors
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/castrosspies
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/castros_spies
https://twitter.com/castros_spies
More info:
https://www.gambitpictures.com/castros-spies-1