Cuban Cinema without Borders

October 23–November 16, 2024

Through captivating storytelling, this series celebrates the resilience of independent Cuban cinema and the enduring legacy of trailblazers like Nicolás Guillén Landrián. Explore themes of exile, motherhood, and nationhood in a formally stunning collection of fiction, documentary, and experimental films that reflect on Cuban lives and imaginaries in the island and its diasporas.

Read full description

  • Wild Woman

  • Mafifa

  • Landrián

  • Persona

  • Calls from Moscow

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • Landrián

    Ernesto Daranas Serrano
    Cuba, Spain, 2023
    Wednesday, October 23 7:00 PM
    Introduced by Lázaro González

    Nicolás Guillén Landrián, Cuba’s first Black filmmaker, faced censorship, imprisonment, and exile because his distinctive style clashed with the Cuban state. In 2019 efforts to restore his “cursed” films began, leading to this documentary. Join us for this special screening, which opens the series Cuban Cinema without Borders. 

    View Details

  • Landrián Restored

    Thursday, October 24 7:00 PM
    Prerecorded Video Introduction by Dean Luis Reyes and Lázaro González

    Despite the censorship and oblivion of the Cuban national film industry, Nicolás Guillén Landrián’s films survive as one of the most potent archives of Afro-Cuban lives. This program features the California premiere of new restorations, offering a rare glimpse into Landrián’s enduring legacy.

    View Details

  • Cuban Contemporary Short Films I: Dreaming of a Nation

    Saturday, October 26 7:00 PM
    Nils Longueira Borrego and Lázaro González in Conversation

    Explore Cuba’s culture of resistance through powerful and intimate short films—from the political turmoil in Now! and Persona to the melancholic vision of Havana in Casa de la noche and the dystopian Tundra. The program ends on a humorous note, with Ana A. Alpizar’s piece, which introduces us to Miami as another landscape of Cuban imaginaries.

    View Details

  • Wild Woman

    Alán González
    Cuba, 2023
    Sunday, October 27 7:00 PM
    Alán González and Lázaro González in Conversation

    After premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, Wild Woman became one of the most celebrated Cuban feature debuts in the past decade. Set in a Havana slum, the film follows a Cuban mother as she battles social prejudice, machismo, poverty, and violence to protect her son after a violent altercation goes viral.

    View Details

  • Cuban Contemporary Short Films II: Voices of Displacement

    Saturday, November 2 7:00 PM
    Lázaro González and Caleb Murray-Bozeman in Conversation

    From a Cuban immigrant in New York (Ángela) to the metaphorical uprootedness in Petricor, the critique of romanticized communist nostalgia in Souvenir, a mother’s longing for reunification with her son in Parole, and the dystopian vision in History Is Written at Night, these films offer nuanced perspectives on diaspora, exile, and nation building amidst Cuba’s historical exodus.

    View Details

  • Calls from Moscow

    Luis Alejandro Yero
    Cuba, Germany, Norway, 2023
    Sunday, November 3 2:00 PM

    Follow four queer Cuban migrants navigating isolation amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in Calls from Moscow, one of the most striking documentaries of contemporary Cuban cinema. This special screening is preceded by Gretel Marín’s Roads of Lava, another beautiful portrayal of queer activism and anti-racist pedagogies within Havana. 

    View Details

  • Mafifa

    Daniela Muñoz Barroso
    Cuba, 2021
    Saturday, November 16 7:00 PM
    Prerecorded Video Introduction by Daniela Muñoz Barroso

    Despite significant hearing loss, Daniela Muñoz Barroso delves into the legacy of Mafifa, a pioneering Cuban conga bell player. This INSTAR Film Festival award-winning film uses archival and autoethnographic techniques to candidly and innovatively confront structural racism in postrevolutionary Cuba.

    View Details