CubaPLUS Magazine

Serrana Television uniting man, earth, and clouds

By: Alina Veranes
Jan 18, 2023
Serrana Television uniting man, earth, and clouds

Although its creations are no longer exhibited as much in national programming as in times of its 25th anniversary in 2018, this January 15 its followers felt the immense joy of celebrating the 30th birthday of Televisión Serrana, an original audiovisual production house, nestled in the heart of the rugged and imposing town of San Pablo de Yao, municipality of Buey Arriba, Sierra Maestra, eastern province of Granma.

It has been 30 years of hard work in the search and presentation of testimonies, stories or interviews, now called "life stories" of the inhabitants of a rural environment and communities considered isolated or of very difficult access, in a place that is sometimes highly mentioned. for its history or the dazzling beauty and biodiversity that it possesses, but quite unknown if we do not refer to the women and men who inhabit it, as their schoolchildren or older adults, for example.

That is a Cuba that also exists and interests the traveler or vacationer eager to contact the good people of the Cuban countryside. And not just ethnologists or anthropologists. And that is the main merit that many recognize in the persistent Televisión Serrana, once it reaches its majority, recognized in artistic and specialized forums nationally and internationally.

Although the admiration that most of its deliveries arouse is also worth more than the prizes and recognitions, of course, deserved. At 30, she is still, as I once said, a breath of fresh and wild air, of peasant mountain culture, of mischievous and very natural wisdom, which sometimes seems unpolished or even a slap in the face, but for that reason more sincere.

And with a wide range of themes, more than 800 documentaries, interviews, and other products have already been produced. Some are deliveries with a high dramatic charge, lacerating, while others stick to the lightness of comedy, as life usually is, whose hazards have everything.

Its filmmakers have traveled kilometers and crossed rivers looking for these testimonials and these impressive stories, many times without the required technical means, but with a growing spirit of self-improvement, which marks the rise in quality. Today it can be affirmed that the work is not the result of daring improvisations. There is creativity and knowledge learned along the way.

The apotheosis of the mountain landscape, with its paths that are sometimes too uphill, slopes, overflowing or calm rivers, springs and ravines, its storms, isolation, solitude, myths, and beautiful visions, also reminds us that living in that mountain range even with social justice won, it's a very different experience, which is entitled to have an artistic space. And very well that it has earned it.

A thousand congratulations to TV Serrana and its founder, Daniel Diez, a filmmaker from Havana who, by creating it, finally fulfilled the dreams of youth born during his time as a brigade member of the Literacy Campaign in the largest mountain range in Cuba.

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