Discoveries from Cuba World Cinema

This triptych film installation dives into the world of Santeria, or Regla de Osha, an Afro Cuban religion forcibly brought from West Africa through the transatlantic slave trade and adapted to survival under the guise of syncreticism. Its initiation rites and rules are interweaved with the artist's personal experiences, performance and poetry. This multi-layered work interrogates the forms and functions of the sacred, exposing our universal quest for meaning and the importance of creating narratives that helps us to endure and find significance in our daily afflictions.

Leroy McLucas’ expressionistic documentary, Dulce Domingo Dulce, shot in Cuba, is an almost lyrical poem about the sugar-cane workers. (Jonas Mekas)

A documentary shot in vérité style chronicles the lives of four Cuban sex workers who set out to resolve their touching and at times humorous, predicaments in Havana's gay underground. The film provides an unflinching, first-ever look at a growing community of homoerotic sex workers trying to make a living in the Cuban mixed market economy. Luchando provides a window into this world through the lives of four of its most compelling characters: Diosa, an articulate travesti who was kicked out of her father’s home for cross-dressing; Manuel, a macho technician who grapples with his sexual identity as he engages in intimate relationships with men; Gorda, an aspiring rapper who describes her sexuality as modern; and Yuris, a cocky 19-year-old whose womanizing results in four children that he must support. The film explores the ambiguity of cultural categories such as 'homosexual' and 'hustler' that are continually renegotiated by the film’s subjects.

Daniel and Adrián are two friends who like to frequent a ruined space located on the Havana boardwalk. Given Daniel's early departure from the country, they both decide to spend one last time together in this place.

At a Cuban high school, a group of girls who call themselves “Las Perdularias” find ways to deal with the absences on an island that is becoming increasingly empty.

Sergio, Ubaldo, Yolexquis and Winston belong to different generations of the Cuban gay community. In this student film they reflect on their own experiences with discrimination, the good sides of being queer and the first years of the Cuban Revolution, when homosexuals were sent by train to concentration camps. Anyone who dared to jump off the train was met by armed soldiers.

Argentine politics between 1955 and 1976.

Trapped in a place surrounded by the immensity of the sea, a man travels through space interacting with what still gives him life. The sea is freedom, but also confinement. He finds a mangrove tree lying in the middle of the water. Unable to leave, he rests in its shade, and like Jonah, trapped in the darkness, he longs to escape from the depths.

The real and imaginary life of a woman. Everything happens within a single universe: her home.

Young Jonathan’s family accepts the challenge to realise his fantasy of transforming an old washing machine into a flying submarine capable of travelling through time.

A Cuban animation short from 1962

A unique perspective on the personal and artistic world of Manuel Mendive, prominent contemporary Cuban artist. A creator in various genres such as drawing, painting, sculpture, cultural painting, installations and performances, Mendive is also a priest of Santeria, whose spirituality permeates all of his art. The documentary shows a wide spectrum of his work, including his last performance in Havana, Las Cabezas.

In a small Cuban town, a group of girls and boys plan to tell a story together. In this story, the children must awaken a man who’s dreaming that he becomes a lizard, and has now become a danger to the people. Through several theatrical performances, the children will lead a lively journey through a territory marked by the dreams of a country in decay.

In a carpentry workshop, Lorenzo restores the corpse of an old wooden chair. On the other side of the city, the silence of the cemetery is interrupted by the buzz of a beehive, which lives inside a vault. Miguel, the gravedigger, discovers the work of the bees and exhumes the last breath of life.

1:00, 2006, Cuba.

4:23, 2010, Cuba.

Nara lives in isolation in an old house in the countryside, unable to go out during daylight. After her mother's mysterious death and her brother's sudden departure, Nara is left alone, haunted by her dreams.

Afibola and Olorum live in a house in downtown Havana. She is an afrofeminist poet, activist and queer, he is her eight-year-old son. Afibola sees her son's safety diminishing with comments outside the home. She worries that it is something he will always carry with him. In the intimacy of the spaces where they live together, they reflect on the difficulty of raising a black child in a racist and discriminatory society.

One night a woman dreams that she is transformed into an animal. In a nightmare, the machinery comes to life in the form of a creature. Between sleep and wakefulness she remembers the abortion she experienced and the ghosts that accompany her. The women of the island reveal the mysteries that help her heal wounds caused by the violence that condemns women in her country.

Paloma, a young Cuban, seeks to be able to do what she loves the most: to sing with her hip-hop group. The evening ends at the Malecón, like so many other evenings for so many other young Cubans.

Behamut Limited Corporation has edited this film using the remaining materials found in Dzershinsky City after it imploded. Doctor James Cracker Fishboume was in charge of its aesthetic aspects.

In downtown Havana, Tomás and Luis built a home in their own terms – Beatles' posters share their space with a pet chicken and a dog. Daily tasks generate a singular choreography between both men inside their own territories, introducing us the couple just days before their 28th anniversary.

This unusual documentary pixilation is based on images discovered in Cuban court archives. In the past, the Communist regime’s prying security forces surveilled not only the enemies of the regime, but also the activities of nonconformists, misfits and dissidents.

Some twenty five years after The Buena Vista Social Club, traditional Cuban music lives on, but it's facing a threat from foreign styles and a disinterested youth. Interviews with many of Cuba's best and legendary artists help paint a tantalizing portrait of Cuban music, past and present.

Under cover of night, a hardworking farmer voices his despair and anger towards God. He speaks the unspeakable, admitting his loss of faith, as a storm rolls in. Will lightning strike him down? Are his cows and bulls silent witnesses or spies? Will he ever be reunited with his devout deceased grandmother now that he's replaced belief with blame?

Documentary on Cuban music, rumba, regla de ocha and Abakuá.

A walk through a night in Habana at it's romantic, passionate, heartbreaking and tempting peak.

An uninterrupted journey through a Street in San Antonio de los Baños in Cuba. The film explores the different moods, rhythms, faces and voids that coexist in close proximity within the prismatic space of the street which at the same time is the time of a whole generation.

A famous baseball player faces retirement and the conflicts it causes in his professional and family life until the night he must play for the last time.

Documentary short film that shows the manufacturing process of Cuban cigars.

Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdes (Plácido) is accused of leading a conspiracy against the Spanish colonial government. Preoccupied by the development of Afro-Hispanic artist and craftsmen of the mid 19th century, Plácido was executed after living a short and controversial life.

Depicts a female form crafted from mud, whose centre (her womb) erupts into smoke which eventually leaves behind a scarred mark in the earth body.

A poetic vision of the lives and actions of the people along the Toa River, in the Oriente province of Cuba.

Animated short film from Elpidio Valdés' series. Corneta is jealous of Fico because he has a better rifle. Coronel Elpidio Valdés tells him how Fico earned his rifle and saved Elpidio's life.

"Gold of Cuba" is a documentary by Argentine filmmaker Alejandro Saderman that shows the development of Cuba through the promotion of its main industry: sugar. From the discovery of America to the figure of Reinaldo Castro, National Hero of Labor as a sugarcane cutter, the film discusses the introduction of mechanical harvesters, including the African slave labor that would later be replaced, with the abolition of slavery, by Chinese sugarcane cutters.

In Cuba, a Maternity Home is a place for women who have complications during pregnancy. The portrayal of the situations that occur in this shared space invite the viewer into the expectations of a group of adolescents in this unique situation.

At an unspecified event, everyone votes in favor. Unexpectedly, there is one vote against: Nicanor O’Donnell’s. When Nicanor goes to the bathroom during the intermission, some curious delegates follow him, eager to find out why he dared to vote against. The suspicion that someone is locked in a stall, listening to everything, turns their sympathy into mistrust toward Nicanor. But the one locked in the stall is also a poor wretch.

In a tenement in a poor Havana neighborhood, four men are playing a game of dominoes: Rodríguez and Nicanor versus Sangremono and Pepe “the Victim.” Once the game has begun, Rodríguez suddenly mentions that he has heard some astonishing news that concerns the future of the country and every one of its inhabitants…

How to make a film using the resources of film club members?

Cuban animation by Hugo Alea, based on the song by Teresita Fernandez

Julito slips away every afternoon in San Tranquilino, Cuba. The hours pass slowly until it's time to return home. On an island that seems frozen in time, he’s the only one who holds on.

In Granizo, a small town in central Cuba, Dianelis' days are prolonged by long waits. She lives between her loneliness and preparations for visits to the prison where her husband lives. She shares this fate with her friend. However, the reality they create together is far greater than what their meager existence can offer them.

In a rural village in Cuba, Rocío lives with pain as part of her daily life. Her body, marked by medical interventions, holds memory in the form of scars, as she faces the humid climate that foretells each approaching storm. Rocío doesn’t need to look to the sky to know what’s coming: her body already senses it.

On the banks of the Almendares River, the inhabitants of El Fanguito have carved out their marginal space in the heart of Havana. The transformations brought about by the Revolution have been reflected in the neighborhood, but always from its marginality. Testimonies full of contradictions, dramas, and hopes reveal the humanity of its protagonists.

The life of cowboys in the Cauto River area.

Lisaida is a young Caribbean woman trapped in her situation as a young mother while she and her partner are still growing up.

Guillermo, 78, is a marble restoration specialist working primarily in Havana's Colón Cemetery. Each day, he handles memories that aren't his: names, dates, and phrases that sum up lives he never lived. His craft gives visible form to others' memories, helping preserve stories that might fade away. Through each commission, he confronts not only others' farewells, but his own. As he engraves what others wish to keep, he waits for a story that might one day name him.

The film opens with Audry Gutiérrez Alea, Titón's daughter, using a banana as a dildo. The short is part of a double experiment of which only half was filmed. Marzel wrote two scripts: an original and its parody, but only wanted to make the latter. Therefore, we are witnessing a reference without a reference, which involves the most absurd series of dialogues and monologues of which the national cinema has memory.

The will and determination of Cuban women in the defense of the Revolution. Their confrontation with physical, psychological and social tensions during a military training of the MTT.

Full-length documentary about the life, passion and example of Pablo de la Torriente Brau, built from testimonial elements and reconstructions of fiction, and trying to incorporate all facets of his life: combative and innovative athlete and journalist, student wrestler and imaginative writer , anti-imperialist fighter and exiled revolutionary, war correspondent and internationalist fighter against fascism in Spain.