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Yoima Valdes He was born in Havana in the seventies and, since his parents did not agree with the political system, “We were what they called worms in Cuba”. She explains it with an intonation that gives his story, at the same time, something more vivid and something more literary, even cinematic, with the noise and clamor in the streets.

The first decade of his childhood – Yoima speaks of ten years as if they were the old age of childhood, Pasolini would write – is already fruitful in the arts in Havana. Thus, Yoima received “a scholarship to study theater in the house of culture, from there they took me to a television program where I recited poetry,” he continues.

A television program to recite Cuban poetry?

Yes, a children’s program called The sun always shines. There I won many awards and diplomas, I even participated in a national tour with other children who sang and did other things.

Was your entry into the arts easy then?

Quite the opposite. We lived in a political system that was rigid for worms, to put it diplomatically, and when they found out, they took away my scholarship.

Were they treated badly then?

To my family? They held repudiation rallies for us, I experienced very extreme situations for a girl.

And what did they do then?

We managed to leave because my father is the son of Spaniards and with a law from Felipe González’s time, we were able to come. I arrived here when I was 10 years old and I went from José Martí to the Catholic Monarchs, so to speak, Spain was very different from how it is now.

“I arrived on December 23, snowing,” he describes, once again entering into that slow rhythm that makes his story an audiovisual one. “I suddenly went from one extreme to the other, from one thing to another without warning. It was hard because from That moment I landed in Spain, I never had a grandfather or uncle again.no family other than close ones.”

He lived on the peninsula for four years. “It was a very different Spain, which was just emerging from Franco’s regime, there was no immigration, the children made a lot of jokes. My sister and I managed to fit in, but it was with time, and by participating in all the activities and being excellent. Finally, we managed to fit into the Spanish system over time, like any immigration,” he says.

Knowing that he had no chance of returning to his country yet, Yoima explains how “I felt part of this country, it may have been a personal decision. The only thing that, when we had been living in Spain for four years, From one day to the next we moved to Florida with the whole family.. “My parents’ goal was the United States and Florida, where there was a very strong Cuban community.”

He describes Miami as a new extreme. “I remember that the idol of the moment was Madonna, there was a lot of marimba in the streets. A movie? Scarface, with all that urban life full of extreme characters. So I once again faced an unknown universe, in which the boys were driving when they were 14 years old and there were drugs and things that I had not known in Madrid. And at that moment my parents divorced.”

“There I faced that system that was very brutal, a new language, with the weight of divorce at home, which was a huge issue. And in that place I grew up until I was 24, in the college I started studying theater and doing my first performances. One day, with my sister, during a vacation specifically, we said ‘let’s go to Spain for fifteen days’… We discovered other possibilities and never returned. In Miami there were no cultural routes beyond the art galleriesin relation to interpretation.”

“I started studying theater with Corazza,” his story continues. “Meanwhile, she worked some secondary jobs, like being a translator for a Mexican publishing house. I was a ground stewardess when Air Europa didn’t even have computers to check-in. I remember that I worked all night early in the morning and in the morning I went to school, and so with a lot of effort I did my entire acting career.”

Estudio Corazza was a meeting for her. “From the first moment I knew it was my place. He is a great teacher and I have had the opportunity after studying in very important places in Los Angeles and New York, and I confirm that they have nothing to envy of Corazza. They may be different techniques, but I consider him to be a teacher and he is tremendous as a teacher.”

“I had the opportunity to film while pregnant, in Vientos de la Habana, it was something very magical”

In her third year of studies, Yoima filmed “my first series, which was At eleven at home. That opened up space for another series later, New Street, and I combined them for a while. And from there I began to be an actress, my dream began to come true.”

“My career has developed between cinema, theater and acting,” he continues. “My first film in cinema in Spain was Airbag and I remember that With the check they gave me as payment I organized my first trip to Cuba. Before grandmother dies we are going to return to Cuba, we said at home, because until ’93, those of us who had left could not return. When they opened, it just so happened that with what we had saved, the four of us could go, my mother, my grandmother and my sister. We are a family of women, who always go together.”

How was your return to your native Cuba?

I left with 9 and came back with 23. Imagine, it was very shocking. On the one hand, with my family it was as if a day had not passed, but on the other hand you had become a person outside of there, I was already a woman. I think, and I always say it, that those of us who grew up as children, in some way, all those lost years were not really lost, but there is no way to recover them, because you are already different and your circumstances are different…

And for your family of women, how would you describe that return?

It was very nice and exciting, for us and for my grandmother. Seeing my other grandmother, meeting the family that I had left behind as a child, and then seeing them again, now as a woman, discovering yourself again as a person and getting to know half of your other family is tremendous. I think that is not counted, it is very strong…

Afterwards he has worked in both countries, and in the United States…

Yes, I have worked in Spain, Cuba and Latin America… I had the opportunity to film pregnant, in Winds of Havanait was something very magical to carry my daughter in the womb, a gift of life.

The next movie?

Was The horn of plenty, by Juan Carlos Tabío. A wonderful experience because I found myself in the film With my roots, with my people, Cuba had changed a lot again and I felt very welcomed. Then I went to the Havana Festival a lot and I was with people who were very emotionally linked to Cuba. Life has given me the opportunity to be closer and in some way I made peace with my roots, although I tell you one thing, I consider myself a citizen of the world.

And on tables…

Characters in Spanish, María Guerrero, the CDN… every experience gives you one of lime and another of sand, as I like to say.

Do you interpret the same in Spanish as in English?

I am bilingual, I do a lot of casting in English. Living in the USA gave me that, and many more things.

“Women who dedicate themselves to this profession must tell our stories, the ones that identify us”

Do you consider yourself a feminist?

I consider myself very fighter. Not feminist, because it’s too big for me, I can’t consider myself a feminist, I’m pro-woman, we have it very difficult. She has had to fight me a lot and she continues to have me struggle, the acting profession is intermittent, the entire artistic profession, but this is mine.

Does age have as much influence as they say?

When you are a woman and you are over 40, I won’t even tell you, those who resist are those who are 60 and don’t stop working because there is hardly any.

How would you say the profession behaves towards women in that sense?

I have very famous friends and in stages they have not eaten a bagel. Now, when you are not born in the country you live in, it is doubly difficult to have continuity and make interesting characters.

How would you rate the current moment?

Increasingly, thanks to the laws, women are. We fight a lot and found women’s associations and that is why more and more directors or screenwriters appear. Thanks to production quotas, if it weren’t for the law I guarantee that not a single one would come out, because the man is very comfortable in his role.

What is Spain like as a market?

Spain is a market that is not very large. There are many actors and actresses with a lot of talent and when we reach forty, a funnel is created, so the first to leave are the famous ones and the rest are left behind. Depending on the career and the talent, one survives, but a tremendous funnel is created because there are no female characters and it seems like a cliché, but that’s how it is, it’s a reality.

Is your profession supportive?

Solidarity is sold in relation to certain issues, but then in practice it needs to be applied more… Everything has to change and that is achieved by having more space to create, execute and develop at an egalitarian level. We are very far from equality, we have to fight a lot.

What is your current project?

I am writing a long fiction about the late desire of wanting to be a mother, at the limit of age. Women who dedicate themselves to this profession must tell our own stories, those that identify us, because women of 40 and 50 are wonderful physically and emotionally and in a very interesting moment. That the stories and problems of these decades are not told is very poor and unenriching. It has been a struggle for years in this profession.

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