Director Jordan Allott's conversation with Dr. Oscar Biscet from Combinado del Este prison outside Havana, Cuba

• 01/20/11Filmmaker Jordan Allott talks with Dr. Oscar Biscet from his Havana prison Click Here to Watch the Video

Television / Video

• 07/31/10"Oscar's Cuba: Film about a Pro-Life Prisoner of Conscience". Rome Reports coverage of Oscar's Cuba. Click Here
• 05/12/10Telemundo Press of Oscar's Cuba Premiere at Miami Dade College's Tower Theatre. Click Here
• 05/11/10NBC Press of Oscar's Cuba Premiere at Miami Dade College's Tower Theatre. Click Here
• 10/29/09Jordan Allott is a Special Guest on EWTN's Life on the Rock. Click Here to Watch Video

Radio

• 11/19/10G. Gordon Liddy interviews Director Jordan Allott. Click Here
• 08/18/10Cuba Companioni Talk Radio: Special Guests Jordan Allott, Marta Sosa of Cubanarama & Armando Socarras. Click Here
• 04/08/09Listen to a radio interview of Jordan Allott on the Brian Tilton Show (a daily New Hampshire radio show). Mr. Tilton and Mr Allott discuss US-Cuban relations. Listen Now
• 02/15/096PM -Radio Interview - Cuban Companioni talk radio. Click Here
• 01/07/09Director Jordan Allottis interviewed on BabaluBlog Radio Hour. Click Here

Print

• 06/03/11"Hollywood's Invisible Minority". Associate Producer, Daniel Allott wrote this article in the The American Spectator. Click Here to Read
• 03/28/11Associate Producer, Daniel Allott wrote an article in the National Review on Oscar's Cuba. Click Here to Read the Article
• 09/23/10"Republicanos tildan reformas en Cuba como 'propaganda falsa'". Diario Las Americas reports on Oscar's Cuba. Click Here
• 08/23/10"Documentary depicts Cuban prisoners' living conditions". Miami Herald reports on Oscar's Cuba. Click Here
• 08/23/10"Regresa a Miami Documental Sobre Biscet". El Nuevo Herald reports on Oscar's Cuba. Click Here
• 01/10/10Director Jordan Allott is interviewed in Latino Magazine. Click Here to Read the Article
• 03/31/09Filmmaker Brings Back Shocking Tale of Cuban Prisoners. Click Here to Read the Article
• 02/05/09"Cyber Revolutionary," The American Spectator. Click Here to Read the Article
• 01/30/09My brother, Daniel, and I write in today's American Spectator about Cuba's new generation of dissidents (including an exclusive interview with famed blogger, Yoani Sanchez) and how they are using technology to express themselves. American Spectator article- Cuba's Cyber Revolutionary. Click Here to Read the Article
• 01/04/09www.Lifenews.com article: Click Here to View the Article
• 12/30/08"Cuba's Hidden Heroes". American Spectator/American Values article concerning 50 years of repression in Cuba. Click Here to View the Article

Open Letter Jordan Allott 2002

In a 1966 article entitled “Each Film Is My Last,” Ingmar Bergman wrote in a section discussing morality and the film industry, “I am like the Englishman in the tropics who shaves and dresses for dinner everyday. He does not do this to please the wild animals but for his own sake. If he gives up his discipline then the jungle has beaten him. I know that I shall have lost to the jungle if I take a weak moral stand point.” Here Bergman was responding to an atmosphere dominating the film industry which viewed themes of morality in films as obsolete, not understanding that a filmmaker is always taking a moral position, especially when he attempts to avoid the theme of morality all together.

The film jungle presents itself as a chaotic world full of energy and excitement. But in fact when one looks past this facade, a large part of this jungle can be seen as a carefully controlled world manipulated by large corporations who are only interested in the bottom line. It would seem difficult to refute the observation that mainstream Hollywood cinema is becoming more and more immoral, or, quite possibly more and more amoral. However, this lack of morality is not necessarily present merely because studio executives are themselves without a sense of some sort of morality. Instead their motivation lies in their thirst for money first and foremost; consequently their films will exploit and appeal to the audience's most basic appetite for over-the-top sex and violence.

The illusion that is carefully constructed is one that presents the jungle as giving the viewer everything he or she could want. However, in actuality what is being offered is the same product, over and over, each time in a new and more outrageous package. Bergman, and any filmmaker who sees himself as the major artistic, creative and moral influence on a particular film, although having no choice but to fight it out in the film industry jungle, makes his films in a completely different way. Content, story, characters, message, morality, and personal vision should be of the utmost importance to this type of filmmaker. It is then that the artistic side of filmmaking is used to enhance and deepen the substantive foundation of the film. At his highly evolved state, the “auteur filmmaker” walking through the jungle does not concern himself with profits or demographics the way a Hollywood filmmaker would. He does not say to himself: possibly by using a test audience, if the female lead shortens her dress three inches in this scene, it will produce X amount of added revenue in ticket sales, therefore the lead actress will shorten her dress three inches. The auteur filmmaker writes and directs his films to not only get inside his own soul, but, God willing, into the soul of the audience. He creates his own world and at times breaks his own rules. He is happy to find the public enjoying his work, but not surprised nor deterred in his passion for soul searching and the search for truth when he finds they are not interested. Just as it seems that Bergman and many others believe that as there is no one in the jungle to appreciate the clean cut appearance of the Englishman, at times the task of the auteur filmmaker seems without reward. Nevertheless, in reality there are those who do appreciate a film that attempts to speak to a person’s soul, or at the very least initiates them to think beyond the film. It seems safe to assume that a film that can touch just one person’s soul, working first through their mind, is much more powerful than a film that never even attempts to reach the minds of the masses.

I believe that this is the challenge for the young auteur filmmaker in today’s film jungle. Thirty-five years after Bergman’s words, films are increasingly seen as nothing more than entertainment. Hollywood’s obsessive yet unspoken mantra of style over substance and its outrageous storylines which attempt to do nothing but appeal to the lowest common denominator of our human emotions and desires have made millions for those involved (individuals with no allegiance to the principles of personal vision, art and moral responsibility), and have greatly lessened the possibility of substantive films coming from that particular venue. At the same time, the discriminating “indi market” has closed its doors to many independent filmmakers who are not seen as fitting into the narrow idea of what an “indi” film should look like, both artistically and substantively and most obviously politically. However, filmmakers who are more interested in their film’s message and the questions their films raise, and who regard their film making as a beautiful art form and who will follow their filmatic personal vision to the end without compromises to Hollywood’s power and money or the “indi” market’s rigid political agenda, will garner self respect, as well as respect from those who stumble upon this refuge in the jungle, those who are able to see the power a film can have on an individual: the power of touching a person’s life and allowing them to experience a film through their senses, their mind and their soul, all at the same time.