Four Cuban films will be screened at Casa de America, Madrid, on September 18 under the title “Cuba: Visions of a Fragmented Island. The program invites to discover “a country hidden beyond its geographical limits”, according to its curator, filmmaker Jose Luis Aparicio. The selected films are productions completed between 2023 and 2024 by independent filmmakers from the island currently based in Spain.

Souvenir (Heidi Hassan), History is written at night (Alejandro Alonso), The Broken Space (Gabriel Alemán & Eduardo Eimil) and Cuatro hoyos (Daniela Muñoz), are the short films chosen, which, according to Aparicio, “are just four splinters of a national landscape that is increasingly complex and fragmented. These films are received by the prestigious Madrid institution in the framework of its regular cycle “No por corto por corto menos cine”, devoted, precisely, to that film format that in recent years has gained space in international competitions, as evidenced by the successful tour of these same Cuban works by some of the most important festivals in the world.

“Using very different cinematographic strategies (the self-referential essay of Souvenirthe experimental dystopia of History is written at night; the genre fiction of The Broken Space; the interactive comedy documentary of Cuatro hoyos), these works explore essential issues of the contemporary Cuban experience: the acute social and political crisis the country is going through; the ideological fetishism regarding the Cuban Revolution; the crisis of values within the family; emigration and the unsuspected encounters it brings about,” the curator explained.

Indeed, the public attending Casa de America will be able to enjoy titles that illustrate the creative ambitions and thematic concerns that are currently motivating the film creators of Cuba's independent movement. 

In addition, the vitality of Cuban cinema undertaken from the Diaspora will be confirmed there. Four of these filmmakers -except Eduardo Eimil- live in Spain today, forced to leave the island at different times of their lives due to the worsening of the economic crisis and the growing political repression. In the midst of the difficulties of creating in conditions of emigration, all of them have managed to find niches to make these productions that are at the forefront of Cuban cinema.

It is worth noting that three of the films were made by Estudio ST, an independent project that, also based in Spain, contributes to forge a more solid ecosystem for island creators. The expressive singularity of History is written at night, The Broken Space and Cuatro hoyos is evidence of the accurate aesthetic vision favored by Estudio ST. The success of these films in international festivals certifies the validity of the strategies that this production company has devised to make Cuban independent creation visible in a global panorama.

Souvenir is defined by Heidi Hassan herself as “a melancholic cry that denounces poverty and repression in Cuba, directed at those who justify the failures of the regime”. The director of A media voz (co-directed by Patricia Pérez) collectively resignifies a personal migratory experience, attentive to the blow of separation and the weight of affective memory in those who are forced to leave the country. From there, she embarks on a reflection on how ideological tourism objectifies Cuba, turning the Caribbean nation into a theme park of communism in a grotesque gesture of aestheticization that suppresses the pain, trauma and violence experienced by Cubans in the name of the Revolution. Souvenir has participated in the Festival Internazionale Segni della Notte, in Urbino, Italy, as well as in the Festival Cinélatino in Toulouse, France. 

In La historia se escribe de noche, Alejandro Alonso splices together records of Cuban nights plagued by the power outages that are becoming more and more common in the country to create a metaphor for the situation in which the country finds itself. The film delivers a sensory landscape of industrial sounds and images of darkness where a historical time doomed to disappear. According to the synopsis, the documentary shows images of “the inhabitants [who] try to escape from the gloom while the fires of the bonfires seem to announce the end of an era”, and these alternate with a conversation between the filmmaker and his mother, who “tells of a vision that has been tormenting her for years”. La historia se escribe de noche premiered at the Rotterdam Festival, where it was part of the Tiger Short Competition. Among its awards is the Best Short Film Award at Vienna Short (Austria), which gave the film a chance to compete for the laurels of the Hollywood Academy, the European Film Awards and the BAFTA Awards.

“An ex-cosmonaut steals a historic voice recording. When he tries to sell it, he discovers that his decision may affect the fate of his family,” reads the synopsis of El espacio roto. The filmmakers sculpted a dystopian tomorrow where a man, crushed by his dreams of the past, still has the strength to imagine the possibility of a better world. About the short film, Eduardo Emil and Gabriel Alemán commented: “To fabulate about the possible discovery of a recording of José Martí's voice [...] is to enter into a critical questioning of the current Cuban reality. Where is Cuba going as a nation? What is our future? The title of the short film refers to a poem by the Cuban national hero, “To the spaces”, about the need to cultivate sensitivity as the only antidote against idleness. The broken space would then be that undefined place inside any human being that can be damaged by the loss of values”.

Cuatro hoyos is Daniela Muñoz's first film outside Cuba. The documentary bears witness to an emotional encounter between the director and a Spanish retiree who spends his days playing golf on the outskirts of Madrid, on a small course he has improvised. More than a portrait of two personalities, the film is the drawing of an encounter between two people of different ages and countries who, nevertheless, recognize each other, perhaps because of the hearing loss they both suffer. Regarding Cuatro hoyos, Muñoz explains: “I have a progressive loss of high-pitched sounds. I don't hear birds, whistles or rain. My hearing loss has been changing the way I perceive reality and relate to others. A couple of years ago I came to live in Madrid. Finding José and his golf course in the middle of a vacant lot, and discovering that he couldn't hear me well either, awakened an irremediable interest in staying, keeping him company and trying to listen to him”.

José Luis Aparicio said in his presentation of “Cuba: Visions of a Fragmented Island” that this film session in Madrid is “a new opportunity to appreciate the richness and inventiveness of Cuban independent cinema. He also pointed out that it is “a preview of the film program of the V INSTAR Film Festival, which will take place from October 28 to November 3 in multiple cities around the world.