Film Schedule (Features and Shorts)
In Praise of a Famous Cuban: Humberto Solás and the Power of Melodrama
• Daniel Díaz Torres - Filmography & Bio
• Humberto Solás - Filmography
• Curators

		Hacerse el Sueco (see below).

90 Miles
dir. Juan Carlos Saldívar
USA, 2002, Video, 79 min., English

From the Mariel boatlift of 1980 to the recent Elian Gonzalez conflict, first generation Cuban American filmmaker Juan Carlos Saldívar examines the complex distances that lie within the 90 miles separating the island of Cuba from the US mainland. Shot over a period of five years, this compellingly universal film holds a mirror up to the complex issues of trust, pride, family, sacrifice, responsibility and identity that Cubans and Cuban Americans must deal with when negotiating rights to a shared heritage. Accompanied by a soundtrack of seductive Cuban music, Saldívar returns to his native home to reunite with his family and to recover a lost piece of himself.

Screenings:
Thursday, March 21, 10:15 p.m.
Sunday, March 24th, 6:00 p.m.

Adio Kerida
dir. Ruth Behar
USA, 2001, Video, 90 min, English

Inspired by a Sephardic love song, this poetic documentary offers a bittersweet, lyrical, and often humorous Jewish-Cuban vision of what it means to come from the Island of Cuba. Meshing personal reflections, intimate interviews with strangers and relatives as well as music from Sephardic and Cuban traditions, the Cuban-born filmmaker endeavors to reconstruct her childhood memories of Cuba via the recollections of fellow Sephardic Jews in Cuba, Miami, New York, and Philadelphia.

Screening: Thursday, March 21, 6:00 p.m.

A Cuban Legend
dir. Bette Wanderman
USA, 2001, video, 80 min, English

The Cuban muralist Salvador Gonzalez is best known for his creation of Hamel's Alley in Havana. Gonzalez has transformed the alley into a world-famous public art piece by painting enormous murals that reach up six stories, sweep over doorways and windows and stretch out for two full blocks. This documentary examines Gonzalez's art and how it is inspired by the Afro-Cuban Yoruba religion and the Deities known as Orishas.

Screening:
Thursday, March 14, 10:00 p.m.
Wednesday, March 20, 6:00 p.m.

Hacerse Sueco
dir. Daniel Díaz Torres
Cuba, 2000, 35mm, 107 min., Spanish with English subtitles

A jewel thief masquerades as a Swedish literature professor named Bjorn in order to plot the perfect heist in this colorful Cuban comedy. When the thief falls in love with the beautiful daughter of Amancio, a retired police officer, and is welcomed into their family with open arms, he must quickly decide which he values more: love or money. Can he successfully "play the Swede" long enough to find a way out of this predicament? A tale of love, larceny and an impromptu lecture on Pippi Longstocking.

For mature audiences.

Screenings:
Saturday, March 16, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, March 24, 8:00 p.m.

		Lucia.

In this celebrated anthology film from 1969, the theme of women in revolution is examined in three separate stories, each featuring a main character named Lucia. In the first story, set in 1895, upperclass Lucia is having an affair with a Spanish soldier during the struggle to liberate Cuba from Spanish rule. The Lucia of the second story spurns her middle class family and goes underground to join the failed popular resistance against dictator Geraldo Machado in 1933. And finally, working class Lucia learns to read and write on an agricultural collective in the 1960s in Castro's Cuba. An international classic.

Screening:
Wednesday, March 20, 4:00 p.m.
Saturday, March 23, 4:00 p.m.

Miel para Oshún
Director: Humberto Solás
Cuba, 2001, 35mm, 115 min., Spanish with English subtitles

After the death of his overbearing father, Roberto returns to Cuba in the hope of finding the mother his father claims abandoned them both whey they left Havana for Miami as exiles thirty-two years earlier. This touching film paints a compelling portrait of the unique chasm between those who left Cuba after the revolution and those who remained. Porfirio Enriquez' beautiful cinematography of the Cuban landscape, an endearing sense of humor and a powerful Mother and child reunion combine to create a remarkable journey into the collective Cuban heart.

Screenings:
Friday, March 15, 5:00 p.m.
Saturday, March 23, 7:00 p.m.

Van Van, Empezó la Fiesta
dir. Liliana Mazure & Aaron Vega
Cuba/Argentina, 200, 35mm, 80 min., Spanish with English subtitles

The Cuban band Los Van Van is celebrated in this musically-charged documentary. Havana. December 4, the night of St. Barbara Shangó. One hundred thousand people vibrate along the coastal avenue next to the sea. Miami. A show at the Miami Arena turns violent as militant Anti-Castro Cuban Americans protest at the entrance. A standing ovation from the crowd of 4,000. Then the 2000 Grammy Awards ceremony and a performance that celebrates (the first) thirty years of a beloved band and their spectacular sound. A musical treat for fans of Cuban music.

Screenings:
Thursday, March 14, 9:45 p.m.
Saturday, March 16, 1:30 p.m.
Sunday, March 17, 11:00 a.m.
Monday, March 18, 9:45 p.m.

SHORTS:

¡Cuba Cuba!
Total running time 84 minutes

La Americanita. (Dir. Erin Ploss-Campoamor, 2001, Narrative, 16mm, 20min, USA). Marisol is a suburban Latina who straightens and lightens her hair and speaks very little Spanish. Her cousin, Odalis, is a recently-arrived redheaded Cuban who barely speaks English. The two confront their preconceptions about Cuba and America as they forge an identity that includes both.
Quiénes son? / Who they are? (Dir. Alex Stikich, 2001, Experimental, video, 8:07 min, USA). This experimental film looks at the Cuban Missile Crisis, the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion and the longstanding US blockade of Cuba. October 1962 sees a shaky accord between the US and Russia, but this agreement has never fully allayed fears of a surprise military attack.
Cuban Roots. (Dir. Pam Sporn, 2000, Documentary, Video, 56:40 min, USA). When Pablo Elliot Foster's father returns to Cuba for the first time after 33 years in the US, Pablo decides to explore his Cuban roots as a way to better understand his own Afro-Latino identity. Pablo's guides on this journey are his father, aunt and uncle, who immigrated from Cuba as children in 1962.

Screening: Saturday, March 23, 3:30 p.m.

Cine Cubano! is curated by Professor Carroll Blue, San Diego State University and Gonzalo Lopez (San Diego Metropolitan Transit Development Board)