Curtain of Water

Che, Today and Always

1983 · ★ 10

A sound system plays Commander Ernesto Guevara's speech, delivered on October 20, 1962, during the Second Anniversary of the Young Communist League, along with a series of archival images of the revolutionary leader visiting factories and meeting with workers.

Cuba's Cancer Hope

2020

When the U.S. trade embargo left Cuba isolated from medical resources, Cuban scientists were forced to get creative. Now they've developed lung cancer vaccines that show so much promise, some Americans are defying the embargo and traveling to Cuba for treatment. In an unprecedented move, Cuban researchers are working with U.S. partners to make the medicines more widely available.

Castro: The World's Most Watched Man

2015 · ★ 6.8

Fidel Castro employed a vast spy network that helped him remain in power.

I'm Going to Santiago

1964 · ★ 6.4

This black-and-white film is a loving portrait of Santiago de Cuba and its people. It provides a view of Cuba as a picturesque country, the product of an earthy mix of black and criollo cultures. The film uses historical images which portray the end of the eighteenth century when Haitian slave owners fled with their slaves to Cuba after the Haitian Revolution.

Maestras Voluntarias

2022

Ana Deborah Mola and Belkis Lescaille were among the first young teachers who started pilot programs around the island of Cuba in 1960, laying foundation for the massive National Literacy Campaign that would take place the following year.

La Singular Historia de Juan sin Nada

No synopsis available.

The Call

2014 · ★ 7

Lázaro Escarze, an 87 years old revolutionary Cuban man, lives in a small village and will have his phone installed for the first time in his life. To whom will he call?

Balseros

2002 · ★ 6.5

In the summer of 1994, a team of public television reporters filmed and interviewed seven Cubans a few days before their risky venture of setting out to sea in homemade rafts to reach the coast of the United States. Six made it far enough to be picked up at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard. When these balseros (rafters) were finally allowed to go to the United States, the film crew went with them to a string of several cities. Seven years later, the film crew visits them again, to discover that their destiny has been in the United States. Theirs is a true story about some of the authentic survivors of our times, the human adventure of people who are shipwrecked between two worlds.

Cerro Pelado

1966 · ★ 5.7

A ship of athletes training on the rough seas becomes a symbol of Castro’s Cuba, the games projected on the backdrop of political struggle. This is the story of a ship and of a sports delegation whom the enemy tried to stop from participating in the Tenth Central American and Caribbean Games.

Fredens port

1996 · ★ 9

In a culture where cremation is unusual, cemeteries fill up rapidly. In Latin America and in some other places, to solve the problem, remains are frequently exhumed. In Cuba, two year after interment. Relatives are invited to observe the little ritual. The music of the film is drawn from requiems from different periods. Twelve pieces by seven different composers are quoted. Together, they make up a traditional requiem, although only a few passages from the "dies irae" have been included, and other sections are slightly abbreviated.

8A

1993 · ★ 7

The Kafkaesque world of Cuba under Castro's rule is brought to light in this reconstruction of the 1989 trial and execution of General Arnaldo Ochoa Sanchez, the highest-ranking general and hero of the revolution, and commander of the Angolan and Ethiopian campaigns.

Sankara's Orphans

2023

Thomas Sankara came to power in Burkina Faso in 1983, with the promise of a revolutionary government that would transform the West African country. To help build the revolution, he sent 600 children — many orphans from rural areas — to be educated in Cuba. But after Sankara’s assassination, the children were stranded. The last would only return to Burkina Faso in 2005. SANKARA’S ORPHANS tells their stories through interviews with some of the 600, along with archival footage of their lives on Cuba’s Isle of Youth — where both Sankara and Fidel Castro came to visit. Along with their education, the children worked in the fields and received weapons training. This, combined with their idealism, frightened the new Burkina Faso regime, which worried they might return and take up arms.