Mirta Ibarra

The story of Iluminada, a woman who, having studied to be a literature teacher, ends up working as an usher in an iconic cinema in Havana.

In Havana in the nineteen sixties, there were 140 movie theaters. Only a dozen remain today. For ten years, the cinema industry was a pillar of the Cuban Revolution, but the regime’s hardening and the economic recession precipitated its decline. Fifty years later, only a dozen movie theaters are still running in Havana, while a new generation of bold filmmakers struggles for the very existence of Cuban cinema. In the Heat of the Cold Years tells the story of Revolutionary Cuban cinema through the memories of a choral of elder filmmakers, such as Luciano Castillo, the director of the national film archives, as he scrambles for the preservation of this crumbling cultural legacy, and through a group of young Cuban filmmakers struggling to make their first feature film.

A lesbian, an aspiring actor, an aspiring singer, a low-class marriage, a neighborhood community and 2 renowned directors have memorable less-than-24-hour-long experiences while living in/visiting the capital of Cuba.

Cuba is not a country for young gays. Teen rent boy Reinier falls in love with a mate in the slum soccer field in their neighbourhood in Havana. Although obsessed with moneymaking to hold up his baby, teen wife, and wife's grandma, gambler Reinier always fails to get the stroke of luck he looks for. At the same time he cannot help being infatuated by Yosvani. Handsome Yosvani will give up his older, wealthy girlfriend (whom he hooked up to pay for a lavish life in the big city), and the work he does for her father, a loan thug, so much in love he is with Reinier. But the boys would fight hard to keep this love in the reckless Havana streets.

Pioneering Spanish filmmaker, actress and producer Margarita Alexandre (1923-2015) reminisces about her life and career during a trip to Cuba, where she worked during the early years of the Cuban Revolution.

Amor Crónico follows Grammy-nominated, Cuban-born CuCu Diamantes as she embarks on a whirlwind tour of her home country. Interweaving glamorous live performances with a fictional romance, the film pays tribute to the history of cinema in surreal fashion. Backed by a high energy Latin soundtrack, Cucu's journey is a visual love poem to the sites, sounds, and people of Cuba.

On December 31, 1958, a detective investigates the theft of a painting from the home of a wealthy widow in Havana. The relationship between the two, amid investigations and danzones, reveals the history of the house and the family. The arrival of the bearded men in Havana changes the course of events.

In the Cuba of these times, where everyone sells something, the young Nácar wants to sell her only property, the family vault.

Nicanor, his wife, and his in-laws watch Cuban television. In a single twenty-minute shot, the differences surface between Nicanor, who supports the Revolution, and his father-in-law Damián Rodríguez, a former Batista supporter. The two women try in vain to mediate, and the conflict seems irreconcilable. However, they have no choice but to make up with each other every night.

A look at the life and work of Cuban filmmaker Tomas Gutierrez Alea.

An unclaimed fortune, grown for centuries in a British bank account, becomes a potential windfall for Bernadito Castiñeiras and the residents of the tiny village of Yaragüey, Cuba. To receive his massive inheritance check, Bernadito must prove his lineage to the Castiñeiras nuns who first populated the region. In an isolated and impoverished town where many residents share the same surname, a feud breaks out between the "Castiñeiras" and "Castiñeyras" families.

Using found footage, still photographs, animations, and occasional original footage, “The Mist in the Palm Trees” purports to tell the story of Santiago Bergson, writer, physicist, and sometime pornographer who sold arms to the Resistance in France, flirted with the Nazis, collaborated on Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds” broadcast and helped build the A-Bomb.

Mercedes and Pedro, Cuban producers and screenwriters, travel to Spain to close an agreement with Alberto, a Spanish producer. Together, they try to make a film about Cuban reality. A movie about those who leave the island, those who return, but also those who still want to leave but cannot. A simple idea that will slowly become more complicated because Spaniards and Cubans have a very different point of view on this reality.

A woman finds herself going from having no man in her life to having more suitors than she can handle in this offbeat romantic drama. Rosa is an artist in her early forties who is recently divorced and looking for a new relationship. Unfortunately, few immediate prospects are on the horizon, and Rosa spends much of her free time commiserating with her close friend Jaime, a gay actor her own age. After consulting Andronica, a fortune teller, Rosa is told that relationships with three different men are on the horizon for her, and soon she finds herself falling for Gustavo, an architect from Argentina. While in Spain, Gustavo is staying at a hotel run by Greta, who is the unwitting center of a web of romantic entanglements; her daughter, is involved with Juan, a delivery boy for a pizza parlor who also has his eye on Rosa, while Greta's ex-husband (Bob Wilson) is also hoping to win Rosa's heart, in his case through poetry.

No synopsis available yet.

No synopsis available yet.

In 1979 Cuba, flamboyant gay artist Diego attempts to seduce straitlaced David, an idealistic young communist, and fails dismally. But David conspires to be "friends" with Diego so he can monitor the artist's subversive life for the state. As Diego and David discuss politics, individuality and personal expression in Castro's Cuba, a genuine friendship develops between the two.

After the father of Marga’s unborn child dies, the young woman loses all hope, until she meets a dashing, handsome gentleman who just might be the man of her dreams -- aside from the fact that he happens to be gay…

An anthology film presenting the stories of five different women who struggle for identity and self-esteem in their love relationships. A bittersweet image of Cuban reality.

Maqroll, Ilona, and Abdul all share a common dream: to sail the world in a tramp-steamer. But who could afford such a thing? Over the years they have become separated. Alone in Panama City, smuggler Maqroll is finding neither great success nor happiness — until the tropical rains come, bringing Ilona: friend, lover, and partner in crime. Abdul, in Morocco, has found a steamer to suit them. In Panama, Ilona and Maqroll begin a new scheme, in search of impossible wealth. But fate has further twists in store.

Walter, an aspiring musician from Madrid, has a lot of troubles. After finding a videotape, he learns something which will alter his whole life, and put his Madrid problems on hold. In the tape, a Cuban woman confesses to being his mother. She is waiting for him in Havana. Walter goes to Havana to see his mother. There, the plot thickens with the addition of the mother's daughter, and a Spanish airline crew member, who round out the quartet.

During the 'Special Period', the members of a funeral procession cross paths with truckdrivers who have to take the same route, and begin to talk about God and the world. They discover that life for both groups has many similarities, as well as a lot of differences.

Jose Luis, a young boy with aspirations to become a scriptwriter and director of cinema, is dazzled on having known the beautiful Sissy. To impress her, he appears as the director who looks for a not professional actress. She, that the whole life has dreamed of being 'discovered' but that it is not naive with men, pretends not to be interested. They begin a relationship in wich both are not as they wanted to be.

No synopsis available yet.

An approach to a living myth of dance, Alicia Alonso, from the viewpoint of her passion, tenacity and devotion to art. It includes fragments of the ballet Giselle, choreographed by her, based on the original by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot, and of La Diva, choreographed by Alberto Méndez.

A fugitive bursts into the home of two Catholic nuns. In an attempt to save his life, they hide him from the marauding military patrols, despite the danger they face if they are caught.

Matanzas, Cuba, 1913. Two young people who are in love communicate through letters written by penman. When the young man leaves town, to become a pilot, the girl discovers she is really in love with the one who wrote the letters.

It reflects the transformation which a woman undergoes in the crisis of personal fulfillment that her husband is going through. In the middle of a complex process, marked by contradictions and failures, she will grow and express her independence as a human being. She will be another woman, determined to continue the difficult and unknown daily struggle.

A theater director and script-writer falls for a female worker from the Havana docks, but his machismo, social and working conflicts, and the Cuban woman's condition interfere with their relationship.

A pious plantation owner attempts to teach Christianity to 12 of his slaves by inviting them to participate in a reenactment of the Last Supper.