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U.S. artist killed in Cuba
By Harlan Jacobson, USA TODAY
HAVANA — Albert Carvajal never knew who or what hit him.
He was jazzed to be bringing his award-winning first short film to the Havana International Film Festival last week.
The 33-year-old production assistant on NBC's Access Hollywood was so proud of his film that he cajoled a flight attendant on Delta charter Flight 9898 from New York into showing Capicu (Spanish for "the winning domino") on the plane. The film is about two couples in New York's Washington Square Park. Capicu won best short prize at New York's Latin USA film festival in November.
"This is my film, everybody," an ebullient Carvajal announced up and down the aisle of the 737. "I'm going to show it in Havana, but this is a pretty great screening room, so we're gonna show it here." He handed out his business card: Albert Carvajal, Filmmaker/Screenwriter, South Bronx Films.
But the hopes of the budding filmmaker ended tragically as Carvajal was mugged and beaten Dec. 8, about 12 hours after arriving in the Cuban capital. After five days in a hospital there, he died Saturday night. His body was returned to his family in New York Sunday night.
According to his film's tearful producer, Lorraine Rodriguez, Carvajal returned from dinner about 11:30 p.m. Dec. 7 with some film people and locals he'd met on the veranda of the Hotel Nacional, where he was staying. Then the group went to a party.
Sometime early Monday, Carvajal was beaten and robbed, his body dumped into the middle of Avenida 23, a busy Havana thoroughfare a block from the Hotel Nacional. He had been robbed of $700, his leather jacket, shoes and shirt.
Police took Carvajal to the Calixto Garcia hospital in the Vedado district, but doctors could not determine the source of his internal bleeding.
"The whole thing is a mystery," says friend and fellow filmmaker Roberto Monticello, back in New York Monday. "We still don't know what happened to Albert. His kidneys shut down. He had two heart attacks before he died. His legs were bruised, and he complained he couldn't feel them."
Carvajal, who was conscious during the week, could not identify his attackers, friends said.
As his condition worsened, Elena Adames, the film's main actress, went to U.S. officials there, who contacted NBC's Havana reporter, Mary Murray. She contacted NBC, and network officials were ready to send a Medivac helicopter within the hour, Adames said, but Carvajal's blood pressure had dropped, rendering him too fragile to move.
Monticello says Carvajal seemed battered but was hanging on through Wednesday afternoon.
"The question was when he'd get out and would he be OK to take the plane," he says. "But some time Thursday, the doctors said Albert turned critical."
Capicu had its first screening Dec. 9 and was received well. A second screening was added at La Rampa, a theatre just down Avenida 23 from where Carvajal was dumped.
Carvajal, who was American-Dominican, was looking to expand the short into a feature and was expected to attend the packed second screening Friday when his condition deteriorated.
He leaves his wife, Candida, and two children, Albert Jr., 4, and Lisa Marie, 2. NBC is establishing a fund for his children.
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