Hubert Sauper: “With ‘Epicentro’ I have sought to understand the psychology of empires”

• On Wednesday, The Time of History section hosted the presentation of the documentary ‘Epicentro’, by Hubert Sauper, in which the Austrian director narrates the situation of Cuba since the end of the Spanish Empire, marked by the USS Maine explosion and the subsequent control of the American Empire

10/28/2020.- “Havana became the epicenter of globalization, of slavery and of the American empire,” says Sauper, who won the Jury Prize at Sundance Festival for this film. With this documentary, the filmmaker sought to “understand the psychology of empires”. The film also depicts the importance that “a new mass hypnosis technology”, cinema, had at that time, and how it managed to convince the American population to go to war through propaganda and war films.

For this documentary, Sauper went to Havana and let the natives there tell their own story: “I don’t want to tell complicated stories through specialists, the people who appear in my film are street people”. He also says that this film was shot in his “raw” style since, as he explains, “the scenes were shot with minimum technology and there can’t be much interaction with the participants if you’re looking at a lot of buttons at the same time”.

Hubert Sauper had help from Oona Chaplin for his documentary. “She is an extremely intelligent person and she knows how to interact with people, and we wanted to create real situations with the children,” he added.