In freedom, defecting actors have humble dreams

Posted on Tuesday, 05.01.12

In freedom, defecting actors have humble dreams
By Fabiola Santiago
fsantiago@MiamiHerald.com

When I meet them Tuesday afternoon, the young couple is sitting in front
of the brightly lit make-up mirrors at the studios of América TeVé in
Hialeah Gardens.

Anailín de la Rúa and Javier Núñez Florián are about to go live on Maria
Laria's afternoon talk show Arrebatados (Rapturous), their umpteenth
interview since the 20-year-old actors from Cuba came out of hiding and
announced their defection.

"We're still not able to take in everything that has happened," de la
Rúa tells me when I ask them at what moment during their carefully
plotted escape they realized they were truly free. "We're still in shock."

Núñez Florián, wearing a tight-fitting black T-shirt that says in large
letters "VIVA MIAMI," simply nods.

Freedom is wondrous and scary, too large for words.

"Leaving is the dream of all Cubans," de la Rúa says. "Well, at least of
all of us young Cubans who don't see a future there. We want to work
hard and to see the fruits of our labor, and that is not possible in
Cuba. Nothing is possible in Cuba."

The couple arrived from Havana at Miami International Airport on April
18 and were supposed to take a connecting flight to New York to
participate in the Tribeca Film Festival, where the movie Una noche (One
Night) by the British director Lucy Mulloy was having its U.S. premiere.

In the film, De la Rúa and Núñez Florián, both 20, play an inseparable
brother and sister who plot with a friend their escape from Cuba on a
raft — their first cinematic role. They were cast separately — she while
on a beach, he at the casting call — and they fell in love while filming
four years ago.

In real life, they also became inseparable.

The decision to leave everyone they loved behind and to take the travel
opportunity to flee put them in a similar place to the characters they
played. "But we were lucky, we didn't have to leave on a raft," she says.

They gave up on their first opportunity when they first traveled to
Berlin, where the film was first shown earlier this year. But once in
Miami, they abandoned the film's third protagonist, Dariel Arrechada,
and a film producer at the airport.

They were so scared to lose their bid for freedom that they sat out the
Tribeca Film Festival hiding in Hialeah. The film went on to win three
awards, including a best actor award for Nuñez Florián, who shared the
honor with co-star Arrechada.

"Freedom has a price and it is high," Nuñez Florián says. "We were
willing to pay it. We're sorry we missed it but it was worth it. We
couldn't take the risk'' of being returned to Cuba.

They're learning many new things, not only about the world outside but
about Cuba itself. They didn't know, for example, about the gritty
writings about life on the island of the internationally renown blogger
Yoani Sánchez and of the activism of the dissident movement.

"We only know about how our generation feels in Cuba — hopeless,
resigned to the misery," de la Rúa says.

But now they see a road of opportunity — and hopefully jobs, if not
casting calls — in Las Vegas, where Nuñez's brother, who traveled to
Ecuador and then made it to the United States, now lives.

Their first big goal: to learn English.

"It's the first thing we want to do," de la Rúa says.

She adds: "All we want to do is work and to be able to help our families
in Cuba. We're not here to get castings and be famous or anything like
that. If that happens, great, but we're here for a future and we know we
can have one because we're willing to work hard."

"They're decent kids who grew up in humble neighborhoods in Havana and
have a humble vision for their lives," says Wilfredo Allen, the Miami
immigration attorney handling their application for political asylum.

During the television show, Nuñez-Florián gets to talk live with his
mother in Havana.

"He's my youngest son and he's my life," the woman tells Laria, the show
host.

And to her son, she advises: "Study, become a good actor."

It is de la Rúa who is silent now.

Tears flow.

"We want to be here," she finally says, "but this is a sacrifice because
we love our families and we're not likely to see them for a long time
again."

After the show, the young couple flies to Las Vegas, their plane ticket
donated by the station, leaving behind the recording of another story of
the Cuban exile experience.

Theirs may be woven with the distinct threads of a new generation, with
a reality different from those who came before them, but their dreams,
as will be their new journey of loss of country, family separation, and
hope — that oversized hope that comes with freedom — are common to us all.

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