by Antonio Mejías-Rentas
Juanes
CUBA CONTROVERSY – An announced peace concert by Juanes in Havana has sparked debate in his Miami home base, in spite of what appears to be a new openness for cultural exchange between U.S. and Cuban artists.
Juanes confirmed this month that the second Paz sin fronteras concert, intended to promote worldwide peace, will take place in the Cuban capital Sept. 20. It follows last year’s successful concert on the Colombian-Venezuelan border that included performances by top Latin American and Spanish artists, including Carlos Vives, Juan Luis Guerra and Miguel Bosé.
The announced concert at Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución will reportedly include performances by several artists from the U.S. and those artists include two other prominent Miami- based singers: Enrique Iglesias and Luis Fonsi.
Some sectors of Miami’s Cuban exile community have severely criticized Juanes’ announcement, forcing the Colombian singer songwriter to put out a statement calling the concert an “apolitical event.’’ Juanes has also reacted in a series of messages he posted on the Twitter social network.
The second Paz sin fronteras concert appears to have the tacit approval of the Obama administration, which has allowed an increased amount of cultural exchange between the U.S. and Cuba. Before visiting Cuba last month to work out some of the concert’s logistics, Juanes paid a visit to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington.
Miami’s El Nuevo Herald quoted an unnamed State Department source as saying the U.S. gave Juanes its blessing. “We’re not officially sponsoring the concert, but the State Department favors these kind of cultural interchanges because they increase the understanding among nations,” the source told the newspaper. El Nuevo Herald has published several opinion pieces decrying the Cuban concert.
RECOGNITION FOR LATI NO PROGRAMS: PBS’Latino programs has received nominations for 2009 News and Documentary Emmy Awards as well as Imagen Award nominations for Best Documentary/Television and Best Children’s Programming.
The 30th annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards recognize outstanding achievement in broadcast journalism during the 2008 calendar year. The Imagen awards were established in 1985 from a suggestion by veteran TV producer Norman Lear to encourage and recognize positive portrayals of Latinos in the media.
The PBS Emmy nominees include the Kieran Fitzgerald-directed P.O.V. documentaries “The Ballad of Esequiel Hernández,” and “The Judge and the General,” co-produced and directed by Elizabeth Farnsworth and Patricio Lanfranco.
Another Emmy nomination was for the Independent Lens fi lm “Hard Road Home” directed by Mackey Alston.
The three Imagen nominations included P.O.V. “The Last Conquistador,”directed by John J. Valadez, Latinos’08, from filmmaker Philip Rodriguez as well as American Experience “A Class Apart” by Carlos Sandoval and Peter Miller.
The Emmy awards will be presented Sept. 21 at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, located in the Time Warner Center in New York City. The Imagen awards will be presented at a black-tie dinner gala Aug. 21, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills.
TAKEOVERAT BORDER MEDIA: Lending institutions Goldman Sachs, Vestar Capital Partners and D.B. Zwirn are set to take over Border Media, according to the trade publication Inside Radio.
MOST INFLUENTIAL: ImpreMedia won the 2008 Cambio 16 award for being ~the best and most influential Hispanic media company in the U.S.”
The award was presented to impreMedia chairman and CEO John Paton, July 14 in New York by Manuel Domínguez Moreno, the director and editor-in-chief of Grupo EIG, which also publishes the Spanish newsweekly Cambio 16. Hispanic Link.
