Episode 3 is an inside look on Cuba’s healthcare program and medical brigades. It throughout the world, ranging from contradictory accusations of being victims of exploitation or as evil beings who victimize foreign citizens. We talk to doctors who served in Brazil, Bolivia and Italy, and of course the ones who held it down in Cuba during COVID-19, to gain insight on the truth of the matter at hand.
Episode 2 starts off with Cuba in lockdown because of Covid-19, which has closed public transportation & has caused people to have to walk or bike to the places they need to be; this then transitions to how this has been the norm for some while because of the the impact of the US-imposed “oil blockade” on Cuba; it builds upon the last episode to show even more ways that Cubans are finding alternatives to scarcities caused by US sanctions.
In the first episode of the 3-part documentary series, Cuban journalist Liz Oliva Fernández shows us the daily impact of US sanctions on the Cuban people, particularly on basic necessities and medications that were needed during the Covid-19 andemic. It begins to piece together the nature of the embargo, detailing an arduous, chaotic 5 years since Obama’s reopening of US-Cuba relations to Trump’s rollback; Liz connects the dots between Trump’s stance on Cuba and the political interests driving them, ultimately revealing the international implications that Americans hold at their ballot boxes which Cubans have no say in.
The media landscape in Cuba is bleak. State-run outlets churn out propaganda while US-based journalism reinforces narratives propagated in Miami and DC. Some foreign media organizations try to find an “unbiased” happy medium, but the result is often false balance that obscures the context necessary to understand a country where every aspect of life is shaped by six decades of economic war waged by the world’s most powerful government.
Belly of the Beast fills the void left by media coverage of Cuba and US-Cuba relations by prioritizing the following:
Investigative journalism that exposes the political and economic interests driving US policy and the impact of that policy on people both in Cuba and the United States. We do not ignore Cuba’s many problems, but our priority is to serve as a watchdog over powerful forces in the United States since our primary audience is based there.
People-focused stories that are often misreported, underreported or ignored. Foreign media outlets tend to portray Cubans as helpless victims or passive cogs in a machine. We humanize Cubans both within and outside of government institutions who are working to make their communities, their country and the world a better place.
Life in Quarantine: Witnessing Global Pandemic is an initiative sponsored by the Poetic Media Lab and the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis at Stanford University.
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