Cuba

This historical drama, depicting different phases in the late childhood and youth of the so-called “Apostle of Cuba” José Martí, is most of the time a biopic full of commonplaces often found in this genre, directed by Fernando Pérez, one of the most respected names in Cuban cinema.

Narrated in four movements, in the first two (“Bees” and “Arias”), the 9 year old Martí (endearingly played by Damián Rodríguez) is bullied in school by schoolmates and abused by his schoolmaster, while he learns notions of justice and oppression from his father. He discovers the beauties of Mother Nature with an old slave, explores his sexuality and enters into the world of high art in a Havanan theater. The boy also becomes aware of the high price a poor child has to pay for education.Read More »

Despite the building’s imminent collapse, the last inhabitant of a once luxurious hotel refuses to leave: he remains convinced that treasures, hidden by the hotel’s original owners, lie waiting within its walls.Read More »

In Oggun, Gloria relates the patakin or mythical story of Oggun, the tireless warrior who, enamored of his mother, decided as punishment to imprison himself in the mountains: only Ochun, goddess of love, succeeded in captivating him when she let fall a few drops of honey on the lips of the god of metal, war, progress, and civilization. This film of 52 minutes includes chants, dances, a “tambor” (Yoruba religious ceremony with the bata drums), and the experiences of Ros, who not only made his the beauty of the African chants, but had the opportunity to sing them in trips throughout the world. The noted “apwong” works incessantly to preserve the lore and transmit it to the younger generations.Read More »

“Clandestinos” is the second film in First Run Film’s new Cuban Masterworks Collection and it is a dynamite film. It is a tense political thriller which centers on the romance between two Cuban revolutionaries as they fight for their lives against the secret service of Batista in the 1950’s. The film is based on actual events which occurred during the early days on the revolution in Cuba.Read More »

The film tells the stories of three end-of-the millennium Cubans, whose lives intersect on the Day of Santa Barbara (the African Saint Chango, ruler of destinies). Mariana, a ballerina, ponders breaking chastity vows she made to land the coveted role of Giselle; Julia has fainting spells each time she hears the word “sex,” and Elpidio, a musician, seduces a gringa tourist while Bebe, the narrator, takes us for a taxi ride along the streets of Havana. In Life Is to Whistle, Fernando Perez displays the same cinematographic lyricism that won his first film, Madagascar, the Special Recognition in Latin American Cinema award at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival. Read More »

LBJ is deservedly one of Alvarez’s best known shorts, a stunning piece of visual and musical montage using found materials, reaching a high pitch of satire Alvarez seems to have reserved for President Johnson. The film contains three main sections, with a prologue and an epilogue. The sections correspond to the three letters of Johnson’s initials. Alvarez uses them to stand for Luther as in Martin Luther King, Bob as in Robert Kennedy, and Jack or John, his brother. It’s a bold play on the strange coincidence that the corpses of these three men littered Johnson’s ascent. The film steers pretty close to libel, so to speak, in linking Johnson to the assassinations, but this is not the point…. What Alvarez does is to portray Johnson’s presidency as the culmination of a whole history of socio-political corruption, not of individual presidential corruption of a kind that was yet to come.Read More »

A look at the cuban revolution told from three different perspectives in
italian neo- realist style, the first film of legendary cuban film auteur Tomás Gutiérrez Alea.

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Three vignettes about war in Cuba feature a wounded fighter, guerrilla bombardment and a funeral cortege.Read More »

Alvarez’ longest documentary examination of the Cuban Revolution, this contains exceptional interviews with Fidel, Raúl, Almeida, Vilma, Haydee, Celia and Faustino Perez, among other key players in the Revolution.Read More »

An agit-prop documentary marking the death of Vietnamese nationalist leader Ho Chí Minh, using found footage to link his work to worldwide political movements including the Cuban revolution and resistance within the USA to the Vietnam war.Read More »