FRONT PAGE - FIRST SECTION: HBO pulls Castro profile after Cuban crackdown
By Christopher Grimes in New York
Fidel Castro's latest crackdown on dissidents has cost him the spotlight at the TriBeCa Film Festival, the New York cinema showcase opening this weekend.
Mr Castro is the subject of Commandante, a documentary directed by Oliver Stone and made with Mr Castro's co-operation, that was to have been screened at the festival. But HBO, the cable network that bought the film, has pulled it in the wake of the Cuban leader's crackdown.
Mr Stone, the controversial director of JFK, Platoon and Natural Born Killers, was given unusual access to Mr Castro last year. Some who saw Commandante at the Sundance film festival criticised it as too easy on the Cuban dictator.
HBO now appears to agree, following last month's imposition of long prison terms on 75 Cuban dissidents and the execution of three men who tried to reach the US by hijacking a ferry. It dropped a planned airing of Commandante this week and pulled it from the festival. "The documentary is no longer a complete film due to recent events," HBO said. "It needs to be updated."
The festival will offer a more critical view of Mr Castro's Cuba. Dissident: Oswaldo Paya and the Varela Project is among the 200 films to be shown over the next week.
The festival was launched last year by actor Robert De Niro to jump-start business in the lower Manhattan neighbourhood of TriBeCa. Organisers say it pumped $10m into the district last year.
Mr Stone will still have a presence at the festival with Persona Non Grata, a documentary about Yassir Arafat and others involved in the Middle East crisis.