• Home
  • About
  • WATCH
  • Team
  • CONTACT
  • DONATE

THE COSMIC ROOM

From the Secret Files and Accidental Life of Robert Carl Cohen

  • Home
  • About
  • WATCH
  • Team
  • CONTACT
  • DONATE

Networker

In 1963 & 1964 Robert Carl Cohen became the first US filmmaker authorized by both the US State Dept. & Cuban Foreign Ministry to film the daily lives of upper, middle and lower class Cubans. Returning to the US, Cohen interviewed an upper class exile who requested anonymity due to the family he left behind in Cuba. The film's production had to overcome obstacles such as Kodak's selling the Producer defective raw stock & the loss of the work print from an insured Railway Express shipment.  The film’s 1965 screening as "Three Faces of Cuba" on over 100 National Educational TV (NET) stations led to violent protests by anti-Castro exiles, followed by hearings before federal agencies, & non-inclusion by the NET in the usual distribution of its programs to the schools.  Despite having permits from both the State & Treasury Depts., Cohen's 1963 through 1971 tax returns were audited by the Internal Revenue Service; which revealed no liability.  Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) files in 1975 revealed possible CIA influence in NET's refusal to distribute the film.  

cuba_lecture_brochure_4.jpg