After 18 years living in Italy, the Cuban Barbara Ramos returns to live in her homeland. In the town of Santa Clara, she discovers through the projects of family and friends what has changed in Cuba but also what has not and will likely never change. Shot over a period of three years - the time it took Barbara to build her dream house - RETURN TO CUBA chronicles her life in the wake of Raul Castro's liberal reforms and reconciliation with the United States of America. A light-hearted yet energetic movie positively demonstrating that finding happiness is possible in today's Cuba!
After 18 years living in Italy, the Cuban Barbara Ramos returns to live in her homeland. In the town of Santa Clara, she discovers through the projects of family and friends what has changed in Cuba but also what has not and will likely never change. Shot over a period of three years - the time it took Barbara to build her dream house - RETURN TO CUBA chronicles her life in the wake of Raul Castro's liberal reforms and reconciliation with the United States of America. A light-hearted yet energetic movie positively demonstrating that finding happiness is possible in today's Cuba!
2016-06-13
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There are countless stories of Cubans reaching their dream destination of Florida as boat refugees. A lesser known route to the United States starts with a flight in a ramshackle plane to Guyana. Then the refugees travel to Colombia where they cross the jungle to arrive in Central America, from where they hope to reach the promised land of America—a hard and dangerous journey. Cuban filmmaker Marcel Beltrán visits them in a refugee camp in Panama, where one of the residents gives him an idea. Many people here have filmed their journey, she says, and these videos tell their real story. These jerky, shocking videos are interspersed with Beltrán’s footage of the camp, tangibly illustrating the difference between the hectic pace of the journey and the insecure life at the reception center.
A high-rise apartment built in the 1960s provides housing for 2500 people from 42 nations. Separated from the city by a river and bounded by towering sandstone cliffs, everyone attempts to live and survive in their own way. Foreigners who have a go at being Swiss, and Swiss who observe with scepticism. They meet in the corner shop run by an Iraqi living in exile, send their kids to a children’s club managed by a missionary, and old drinking mates meet regularly over a beer in the neighbourhood’s only bar. Despite all the differences, they are rather proud of the fact that they come from here.
Short documentary about Cuba's resistance to American invasion.
Afro-Cubans played a leading role in the fight to free Cuba from Spanish domination; as part of that struggle, slavery was abolished. Nevertheless, as African descendants began to achieve a semblance of social and economic parity, the plantocracy, backed up by the US army, sought to undo their gains. Determined to resist, veterans of the Mambi army formed the Party of Independents of Color, gaining wide popular support and ultimately threatening the domination of the white Cuban rulers. Their response was savage, and 6,000 Afro-Cubans were massacred; until this film, these events have been shrouded in silence.
The thrilling story of an elite group of Cuban spies sent undercover to the US in the 1990s. From their recruitment, training and eventual capture on US soil; this film peers into a secret world of false identities, love affairs and betrayal. Using never seen before footage from the Cuban Film Institute’s archive and first-hand testimony from the people at the heart of this story, Castro’s Spies gives a rare glimpse into the shadowy world of a spy – where the stakes are life and death.
The chronic shortage of housing in Central Havana has pushed the city upwards, where life spills out onto the rooftops. Resilient and remarkable, these rooftop dwellers have a privileged point of view on a society in the process of major transformation.
In buildings where foreign workers lived in Germany, there were strict rules of conduct, defined by the house rules and supervised by the building superintendents. Many rights regarding the freedom of movement, communication and behavior were abused. Interviews with the tenants and with the "orderlies" which point out absurd situations and clashes caused by these restrictions.
For years, together with his partners from the production company O Quadro, he has been betting on cinema as a tool to explore the typical issues of youth. In this film, Evandro Scorsin turns the cameras on himself as he deals with the dilemmas of the passing of time and the imposition of adulthood. In an exercise in autofiction where cinema and life merge, the film is also a cinematic love letter to the beloved masters (especially Nicholas Ray). Coming and going between two countries and times, it records the vertigo of displacement and the reinventions inherent to an immigrant experience.
In the early twentieth century, the Hotel Nueva Isla was an emblematic luxury hotel. After the Cuban Revolution, it was confiscated by the State and became a shelter for homeless people. Located in Old Havana, today it is an imposing ruin. Jorge de los Rios, a retired clerk, is one of the few residents who remain there, along with La Flaca, his lover, and Waldo, a young itinerant. As the rest leave for safer places, Jorge clings to his dilapidated home and its buried treasures, slowly digging his way through its debris. The film speaks poignantly to a lost generation who fought in the Cuban Revolution and dreamed of a better society.
A "beauty rebel with a cause", Anju Rupal founded and leads ABHATI, a global brand that enhances beauty inside and out, and empowers women in places that need it most.
The dramatic untold story of 420,000 Cubans– soldiers and teachers, doctors and nurses– who gave everything to end colonial rule and apartheid in Southern Africa.
Ilya learned street-smarts in the harsh realities of Russia's Far North, book-smarts in literature class, and the strength of the fist from a father who strived to raise a son following the straight and narrow. His days consist of berating a subordinate and lamenting the days of Stalin; his nights-of scraping metal and composing obscenity-riddled poems. Ilya longs for a life more becoming of his stature, but unbridled personal demons present a major obstacle to his dreams of conquering the nation's capital.
A documentary about the corrupt health care system in The United States who's main goal is to make profit even if it means losing people’s lives. "The more people you deny health insurance the more money we make" is the business model for health care providers in America.
Documentary about Fidel Castro, covering 40 years of Cuban Revolution. Rare Fidel Castro footage: he appears swimming with a bodyguard, visiting his childhood home and school, playing with his friend Nelson Mandela, meeting kid Elián Gonzalez, and celebrating his birthday with the Buena Vista Social Club group.
This documentary follows the lives of four elderly Japanese men living in Manila's impoverished districts. Known as "distressed Japanese," they navigate their daily lives with minimal earnings and assistance from others. Despite once having jobs and families in Japan, they find themselves spending their final days in Manila for various reasons. The documentary offers a poignant portrayal of their struggles over seven years.
Thirst overcomes the hordes of Wildebeest and Zebra moving through Kenya's Masai Mara game reserve on their spectacular annual migration. With the cycle of the seasons comes the dry months, the water of the marsh receded. Now the residents of the marsh face a time of hardship, food will be scarce, until the next rains fall.
As daylight breaks between the border cities of El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico, undocumented migrants and their relatives, divided by a wall, prepare to participate in an activist event. For three minutes, they’ll embrace in no man’s land for the briefest and sweetest of reunions.
COOCUYO. To quote a Cuban comedian: “where does the Cocuyo hide its battery?”, just thanks to its peculiarity, Desiderio uses this cockroach as a perfect metaphor to describe his protagonists: with their green lights during the night and virtually impossible to find during the day. In his movie, he tries to find the battery of the Cocuyo living and looking for the “day-time” part, creating a path made by portraits and with an anti-narrative style. These scenes are far away from the Electronic music, or partly at least; all in a very natural context and without a defined screenplay. http://www.coocuyo.com/
An intimate portrait of the lives of Delvys and Carlos, siblings who live alone with their elderly mother in a rural part of a small Cuban town. The film portrays a family engulfed in their inner worlds. Between the sacrifices they make out of love for those who are present, and their longing for things that are absent, they struggle to find meaning as they reflect, contemplate, and carry the weight of existence, trying together, to move forward.
Oliver Stone's second documentary on/interview with Fidel Castro specifically addresses his country's recent crackdown on Cuban dissidents; namely, the execution of three men who hijacked a ferry to the United States.