By Victoria Burnett

During the economic turmoil of the early 1990s, power cuts in Havana were so routine that residents called the few hours of daily electricity “alumbrón”

Now, grim economic forecasts; the crisis in its patron, Venezuela; and government warnings to save energy have stoked fears among Cubans of a return to the days when they used oil lamps to light their living rooms and walked or bicycled miles to work because there was no gasoline.

Addressing members of Parliament last week, Cuba’s economy minister, Marino Murillo, said the country would have to cut fuel consumption by nearly a third during the second half of the year and reduce state investments and imports. His cots, to a closed session, were published last week by the state news media.

Cuba’s economy grew by just 1 percent in the first half of the year, compared with 4 percent last year, as export income and fuel supply to the island dropped, said Mr. Murillo.

“This has placed us in a tense economic situation,” he said.

Weak oil and nickel prices and a poor sugar harvest have contributed to Cuba’s woes, officials said. Venezuela’s economic agony has led many Cubans to wonder how much longer their oil-rich ally will continue to supply the island with crucial oil — especially if the government of President Nicolás Maduro falls.

Those fears grew last week after Mr. Murillo warned of blackouts and state workers were asked to cut their hours and sharply reduce energy use.

“We all know that it’s Venezuelan oil that keeps the lights on,” said Regina Coyula, a blogger who worked for several years for Cuban state security. “People are convinced that if Maduro falls, there will be blackouts here.”

President Raúl Castro of Cuba acknowledged those fears on Friday but said they were unfounded.

“There is speculation and rumors of an imminent collapse of our economy and a return to the acute phase of the ‘special period,’” Mr. Castro said in speech to Parliament, referring to the 1990s, when Cuba lost billions of dollars’ worth of Soviet subsidies.

“We don’t deny that there may be ill effects,” he added, “but we are in better conditions than we were then to face them.”

Mark Entwistle, a business consultant who was Canada’s ambassador to Cuba during the special period, said that despite its dependency on Venezuelan fuel, the island’s economy is now more sophisticated and diversified than it was before the Soviet collapse.

Besides, he said, Cuba has “this phenomenal social and political capacity to absorb critical changes.”

Still, some are perturbed at the prospect of power cuts. None of the Havana residents interviewed over the weekend had experienced power failures in their neighborhoods.

In an unusually blunt speech to journalists this month, Karina Marrón González, a deputy director of Granma, the official Communist Party newspaper in Cuba, warned of the risk of protests like those of August 1994, when hundreds of angry Cubans took to the streets of Havana for several hours.

Contradiction is more than just a sign of a changing Cuba — it is a fundamental characteristic of it.

“We are creating a perfect storm,” she said, according to a transcript of her speech that was published in various blogs. She added, “Sirs, this country cannot take another ’93, another ’94.”

Herbert Delgado-Rodríguez, 29, an art student, remembered his mother cooking with charcoal in the 1990s.

“I don’t know if it will get to the point where there will be protests in the street,” he said. However, he added, Cubans “won’t tolerate the extreme hardships we faced in the ’90s.”

One worker at a bank said employees had been told to use air-conditioning for two hours each day and work a half-day. Fuel for office cars had been cut by half, she said. A university professor said she had been given a fan for her office and told to work at home when possible.

José Gonzáles, who owns a small cafeteria in downtown Havana, was more sanguine.

“Raúl is simply urging us to cut back on unnecessary consumption, that’s all,” he said, adding that talk of another special period was “just a lot of speculation.”

Not all offices or companies have been affected, and Mr. Murillo said the idea was to ration energy in some users so that others — homes, tourist facilities and companies — could use as much as they need.

In all, he said, the government aimed to cut electricity usage by 6 percent and fuel by 28 percent in the second half of the year.

Under an agreement signed in 2000, Venezuela supplies Cuba with about 80,000 barrels of oil per day, a deal worth about $1.3 billion, said Jorge Piñon, an energy expert at the University of Texas. In return, Cuba sends thousands of medical and other specialists to Venezuela.

On Friday, Mr. Castro said there had been a “certain contraction” of that oil supply.

How large of a contraction is unclear. Reuters reported last week that shipments of crude to Cuba had fallen 40 percent in the first half of this year. Mr. Piñon said that at least part of the reduction was oil that Venezuela refines in Cuba and then ships out again.

Cuba’s energy problems may also be a product of growing demand on the electricity grid, he said. Electricity consumption has risen significantly over the past 10 years as Cubans who receive remittances from abroad kept air-conditioners whirring and private restaurants, bars and bed-and-breakfasts added refrigerators and heated food in toaster ovens.

Tourism has soared since the United States and Cuba announced an end to their 50-year standoff in December 2014. The number of visitors rose 13.5 percent in the first four months of 2016 and is likely to rise further when commercial flights from the United States begin this year.

If Venezuela did halt oil exports to Cuba, it would not necessarily precipitate a political crisis, experts and bloggers said.

The United States may offer help in order to prevent instability or a mass exodus of desperate Cubans. The Cuban government might speed reforms and open the door wider to foreign investment, Mr. Entwistle said.

“To extrapolate some dire political consequence is unwise,” said Mr. Entwistle, adding, “There are so many levers that they have to push and pull.”

Your Editor Opines: Cuban authorities keep looking for saviors to keep the economy going. But they neglect to tap on ingenuity and efficiency to motor necessary growth, Oye Raúl, Just read what your own economists are writing and even publishing. It´s there. Just let it happen.

It has been more than five decades since Ivan Acosta has lived in exile, but this year, his dream of returning to his birth land and finally filming a movie is closer than ever to coming true. He will be making history, as no other Cuban-American director has ever been able to film on the island.

In 1979, Ivan Acosta became a legend with his humorous, but tenaciously raw tale “El Súper” about the emotional tragedy of an immigrant family. Since then, he has not ceased to create wonderful, compelling stories like “Amigos”, “Rosa and The Executioner of The Fiend”, “Candido Hands of Fire”, and “How to Create Rumba”. He is a playwright, a composer, a musical producer, a film and a theater director and was the founder of The Cuban Cultural Center in New York, perpetually advocating for his roots and culture.

GJS: Tell us about your new project “Guantánamo”, which has been in the making for close to thirty years.

IA: “Guántanamo” is based on real events. Thirty years ago I met this man who told me his experience swimming across Guantánamo bay with his two children tied on his back. I decided I wanted to make a film inspired by that story. In 1984 we were going to produce the film in Dominican Republic, but the amazing event of Mariel exodus was all over the news, so producer Marcelino Miyares encouraged me to write about it and I decided to draft a different screenplay, “Amigos”, about a “marielito”, which is how they called Cuban refugees during that event. On April 1980, more than 10,000 Cubans in Havana broke into the Peruvian Embassy and asked for political asylum. Fidel Castro got very angry and declared that any Cuban who wanted to leave the island could do it if their family in Florida would go to the Port of Mariel to rescue them. About 130,000 Cubans left the island on the largest refugees exodus ever in this Continent; they all came to the United States. During the summer of 1984, we started filming, “Amigos” in Miami and New York. I put “Guantánamo” aside again, and waited all these years, till now.

GJS: When you compare old drafts vs. new drafts of this project, how has the story evolve?

IA: Well, the first draft took place during the 70s, when Cuba was going through a lot of international activities, including the war in Africa: Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Namibia, and Eritrea. The last version takes place during the “Special Period”, when the Soviet Union collapsed, and every body thought Cuban communist regime would also collapse, but it didn’t happen. It has been one of the worst periods of the 57 years of Castro’s revolutionary government. A lot of interesting stories happened during those hard years.

GJS: When and where are you planning to film in Cuba, and what is this process like?

IA: We are trying to start pre-production around December of this year. Ideally, we would like to film in the Guantánamo area, where the story takes place. The location includes the City of Guantánamo, the beautiful rural areas in Oriente, and some spots near the long fence that separates Cuban territory from the American Navy base at the entrance of Guantánamo bay. That area is covered with more than 50,000 personal explosive land mines.

In terms of the process, we are soliciting permits from the Cuban government through I.C.A.I.C. Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Industry and the Ministry of Culture. We have to be patient in dealing with Cuban bureaucracy, censorship and constant replacements of government officials. Assuming the Cuban government gives us green light to go ahead and film in the island, this would be the first time a Cuban-American film would be produced in Cuba with Cuban technicians and artists from outside Cuba and compatriots living the island.

GJS: Do you have a cast lined up yet and will local Cuban actors appear in the film?

IA: We do have a list with some actors and technicians living in Cuba and Cuban-Americans and Latinos living abroad. But nobody has been confirmed yet. We are also in contact with key personnel in Dominican Republic, in case we might have to do some filming there.

GJS: Most if not all your stories ruminate on the subject of Cuba. Can you express what it means to you to be able to go back to Cuba and film your movie?

IA: I left Cuba in 1961. I was very young then. Cuba has always been present in my life and in my creative endeavors in film, in theater, in music and in literature. To me it is a double dream. First, to be able to visit my own country after living in my beloved United States for more than 50 years now would be a dream come true and a personal realization. Second, to be able to film a movie about a real human drama based on a true story in my own land would be great for both, the Cuban government, whose message to the world now is about change and opening censorship, but also for Cubans living outside the island. It would mean for us to be able to go back and embrace our family, our friends, and our land without any fear of “reprisal” from the militant hard liners. “Guantánamo”, aside from having the potential to be a superb film, it would also mark a historical event.

GJS: Sounds like you would like to crate bridges to unite Cubans living in the island and outside. Given you are granted the green light to film in Cuba, what is next?

IA: Definitively. The real changes will come when the people of Cuba are able to walk, talk, dance and love, without any obstacle. And of course, when the two millions of Cubans living in the U.S. and several other countries, are able to return to the island without any political restrictions or fears. I firmly believe, the film “Guantánamo” will help to create the bridge of love, respect, and freedom for all.

Your Editor Asks: Why won´t the Cuban government allow the free return of its expatriate citizens? Whether to visit family, do tourism or make a movie? What are they afraid of in the era of Obama?