Fredens port

El octubre de todos

January 1977 •Spanish

Biografía de un carnaval

January 1983 •Spanish

Historia de una Plaza

January 1989 •Spanish

90 Miles

January 2001 •English

Having grown up within the Cuban Revolution, in 1980, Juan Carlos Zaldívar was a 13-year-old "pioneer" jeering in the streets at the thousands of "Marielitos" leaving the island by boat for the United States. Within weeks, he was a Marielito himself, headed with the rest of his family for a new life in Miami. Now a U.S.-based filmmaker, Zaldívar recounts the strange twist of fate that took him across one of the world's most treacherous stretches of water in 90 Miles, a new documentary having its broadcast premiere on PBS's acclaimed P.O.V. series in the summer of 2003. As related by Zaldívar in the intensely personal and evocative 90 Miles, arrival in South Florida is only the beginning of the family's struggles to comprehend the full meaning of their passage into exile. What follows is an intimate and uneasy accounting of the historical forces that have split the Cuban national family in two, and which shape the passage of values from one generation to the next.

Sicko

May 2007 •English

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.

Night Is Not Eternal

October 2024 •English

For seven years, award-winning Chinese-American filmmaker Nanfu Wang follows Rosa María Payá, daughter of the five time Nobel Peace Prize nominated activist, Oswaldo Payá, in Rosa's fight for democratic change in Cuba. Rosa's narrative is interwoven with Wang's poignant reflections on her Chinese upbringing and her observations of eroding democratic norms in the U.S., revealing unsettling similarities to the authoritarian system she left behind.

Nobody

January 2017 •Spanish

Half blind and half deaf, ostraziced Cuban writer Rafael Alcides tries to finish his unpublished novels to discover that after several decades, the home made ink from the typewriter he used to write them has faded. The Cuban revolution as a love story and eventual deception is seen through the eyes of a man who is living an inner exile.

Rethinking Cuban Civil Society

January 2019 •English

The notion of a Cuban civil society is often misrepresented in the U.S. mainstream media. According to most sources, Cuban civil society is limited to the opposition, which has little impact on the Cuban political scenario. Regardless, yearly, the U.S. government allocates tens of millions of taxpayer money to empower dissidents in the island. By doing so, it overlooks genuine expressions of pluralism, reform and contestation which are shaping the Cuban public sphere, sometimes in autonomous ways, sometimes within State-run institutions. Through in-depth interviews to members of Cuban Civil society, this documentary explores the complexities associated to these processes, following the itinerary of the debate about the concept of civil society generated in Cuba, since the 90s to the present.

Cuba's Cancer Hope

April 2020 •English

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.

So Near... So Far

April 2017 •English

The young American Pablo Menéndez came to Cuba to study Music at the National School of Art. Here he formed a family and became one more Cuban. Member of the Sound Experimentation Group of ICAIC and promoter of the teaching of the electric guitar in Cuba, he is, together with his group Mezcla, one of our most original musicians.

By the River

March 2021 •English

Varanasi is the Indian city where Hindus go to die. Stretching along the Ganges, Varanasi holds great spiritual significance because Hindu scriptutres say that anyone who dies there will attain moksha—liberation from the cycle of rebirth. Berlin-based director Dan Braga Ulvestad captures life and death in India’s heartland in this moving documentary filled with exquisite cinematic moments. By the River starts its narrative journey with the city’s “death hotels,” dedicated apartments where people wait to die, sometimes for decades, so they can be cremated on the banks of the Ganges.

Cuba and the Cameraman

September 2017 •English

This revealing portrait of Cuba follows the lives of Fidel Castro and three Cuban families affected by his policies over the last four decades.

Maestras Voluntarias

April 2022 •Spanish

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.

Cuba, A Paradise on the Brink

October 2017 •French

Will Cubans be able to safeguard their heritage of pristine Nature and preserved ecological treasures under this new era, as they are facing the combined pressure of money and tourism? What policies can be implemented to maintain the island’s spectacular wilderness?

COOCUYO

June 2017 •Spanish

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/

Gift of the Game

August 2002 •English

Acclaimed Florida novelist Randy Wayne White travels to Cuba with former pitchers Bill "Spaceman" Lee (Boston Red Sox) and Jon Warden (Detroit Tigers), and a band of baseball enthusiasts to find and revive the children's baseball league founded by American writer Ernest Hemingway in the days before Fidel Castro came to power.

Personal Che

September 2007 •English

A documentary that explores the myth behind the truth. Different people around the globe reinterpret the legend of Che Guevara at will: from the rebel living in Hong Kong fighting Chinese domination, to the German neonazi preaching revolution and the Castro-hating Cuban. Their testimonies prove that the Argentinian revolutionary's historical impact reverberates still. But like with all legends, each sees what he will, in often contradictory perspectives.

AHORA SI LLEGO!

December 2015 •Spanish

The first Road Movie feature film made by the Italian artist Sanzi together with the Cuban Balboa is inspired by friendship, the island and the motorbike. The two artists used, for the first time in Cuba, the form of the Road Movie--the cinematic genre the plot of which is developed during a trip.

Buena Vista Social Club

June 1999 •English

In this fascinating Oscar-nominated documentary, American guitarist Ry Cooder brings together a group of legendary Cuban folk musicians (some in their 90s) to record a Grammy-winning CD in their native city of Havana. The result is a spectacular compilation of concert footage from the group's gigs in Amsterdam and New York City's famed Carnegie Hall, with director Wim Wenders capturing not only the music -- but also the musicians' life stories.

Sankara's Orphans

March 2023 •French

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.