13th Minnesota Cuban Film Festival May 26-June 30, 2022MSP Film Society at St. Anthony Main Theatre, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Since 2010, the Minnesota Cuba Film Festival (MCFF) has brought to the Land of 10,000 Lakes some of the best Cuban films. This year’s festival will take place at St. Anthony Main/MSP Film Society Theater on six consecutive Thursdays, May 26-June 30.
The MCFF features films that address the achievements and challenges of the Cuban people through the eyes of its filmmakers. The festival highlights diverse and challenging films about social change, human struggle, and the boldness of the human spirit.
The objective of the Minnesota Cuba Committee, the presenter of the film festival, remains to offer Minnesotans a chance to learn about and appreciate Cuban films and culture and to remind our supporters of the onerous burden that the blockade inflicts on the Cuban people.
This year the film’s lineup is outstanding, as follows:
Canción de Barrio (Neighborhood’ Song) A documentary on Silvio Rodríguez’s tour of Cuban neighborhoods. The director of the film, Alejandro Ramírez Anderson, filmed the daily life of the peripheral communities of Havana during the concerts given by the troubadour Silvio Rodríguez in his so-called “interminable tour” of the neighborhoods.
La Emboscada (The Ambush) (Drama) This film dramatizes a tense stand-off between four surviving Cuban troops and opposing counterrevolutionary forces in Angola. Above all, it is about the generational tensions within individuals and Cuban society reflected by their behavior when the soldiers are caught in an ambush by guerilla units aiding the South African Army in its attack on the post-colonial Angola government of the MPLA, which Cuba was helping to defend.
Cuba in Africa (Documentary) The dramatic untold story of 420.000 Cubans—soldiers and teachers, doctors and nurses—who gave everything to end colonial rule and apartheid in Southern Africa. To be presented with “The Ambush.”
El Mayor (the Major) (Drama) Ignacio Agramonte y Loynaz (1841–1873) was a Cuban revolutionary, who played an important part in the Ten Years’ War (1868–1878). “El Mayor” is undoubtedly a long-awaited film in Cuba, where Agramonte is remembered as a symbol of the struggle for independence, a legendary figure, an example of the courage of those who gave their lives on the battlefields.
Los Hermanos (The Brothers) (Documentary) Ilmar and Aldo are virtuoso Cuban-born brothers living on opposite sides of a geopolitical chasm a half-century wide. Tracking their parallel lives, poignant reunion, and momentous first performances together, Los Hermanos/The Brothers offers a nuanced, often startling view of estranged nations through the lens of music and family.
El Último Balsero (The Last Rafter) (Drama, 2020) After risking his life crossing the Florida Straits on a raft, a young Cuban searches Miami for his long-absent father. When a political shift makes him America’s first Cuban undocumented immigrant, he must battle the new and bigger fear of deportation, while trying to find where he really belongs.
Volverán los abrazos (I’ll hold you again) (Documentary) This documentary tells the stories of Cuban doctors who have fought the pandemic since the first coronavirus case was announced in Cuba. It shows what their lives have been like since then. “I’ll hold you again” addresses the experiences of Cuban health workers who, like everyone else, are human beings who felt fear in the face of a lethal global disease.
The 13th. Minnesota Cuban Film Festival is organized by the Minnesota Cuba Committee, with the collaboration of the MSP Film Society, and ICAIC (Cuban Film Institute)
