The Vancouver International Film Festival Theatre presents a number of films from and about Cuba.
July 22-24, 2016
VanCity Theatre, 1181 Seymour St, Vancouver, BC
Ballet Hispanico: Carmen.maquia and Club Havana (103 mins, USA, 2015)
July 26, 2016, 6:30pm
Latin-inspired dancing at its best: In Club Havana, the intoxicating rhythms of the conga, rumba, mambo, and cha cha are brought to life by choreographer Pedro Ruiz, himself a native of Cuba. Hailed as a “masterpiece” by the Chicago Sun-Times, Gustavo Ramírez Sansano’s Carmen.maquia is a Picasso-inspired, contemporary take on Bizet’s classic opera about a passionate gypsy. Riveting from start to finish, the physically charged and sensual choreography fuses contemporary dance with nods to the Spanish paso doble and flamenco.
Behaviour (Conducta, 108 mins, Cuba, 2014)
Director: Ernesto Daranas
July 23, 2016, 7:00pm
July 26, 2016, 8:40pm
In a vibrantly depicted Havana, 11-year-old Chala industriously cares for carrier pigeons and dogs on his apartment balcony. Trouble is, there’s easy money in dog fighting. The most important champion in his life however is his aging teacher, Carmela (the marvelous Alina Rodríguez), a woman who refuses to let the boy fall between the cracks and endures government reprisals as a result. Director Ernesto Daranas demonstrates equal bravery in confronting Cuba’s social ills.
Horses (Caballos, 95 mins, Cuba, 2015)
Director: Fabian Suarez
July 24, 2016, 8:30pm
Robi is a lonely guy who is passionate about photography and torn between the love he feels for his “uncle” Salomón, who is ill with AIDS and to whom he owes his gratitude, and the love he feels for Galaxia, who decides to leave for France
I Am Cuba (Soy Cuba, 141 mins, Cuba/Soviet Union, 1964)
Director: Mikhail Kalatozov
July 22, 2016, 9:00pm
July 24, 2016, 3:30pm
“They’re going to be carrying ravished film students out of the theaters on stretchers,” wrote Terrence Rafferty in the New Yorker when this astonishing Soviet-made portrait of Castro’s Cuba was rediscovered in the mid 1990s. Featuring some of the jaw-dropping camerawork ever filmed (and decades before the invention of the Steadicam), the movie is a euphoric celebration of Cuba, the Revolution, and (most potently) revolutionary cinema.
35mm print courtesy Milestone Films
Lucia (160 mins, Cuba, 1968)
Director: Humberto Solas
July 23, 2016, 4:00pm
Three tales about three women called Lucía. One takes place during the independence war against Spain, the second during the Machado dictatorship, and the third one is after Castro’s revolution. Considered among Cuban critics as one of the great achievements of Cuban cinema.
These three tales about three Lucías set in three separate periods that were essential to the formation, consolidation and splendour of Cuban national conscience–1895, 1932 and the early years of the Revolution–reflect the parallel maturing process of Cuban women.
Memories of Underdevelopment (Memorias del subdesarrollo, 97 mins, Cuba, 1968)
Director: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea
July 24, 2016, 6:30pm
A middle-class intellectual who stayed in Cuba after the Revolution in 1959 faces a new world he does not seem to grasp. Selected among the best 2000 films of all times by the International Federation of Film-Clubs. Based on Edmundo Desnoes’s award-winning novel. “This audacious, sensual portrait of an alienated intellectual in the early days of Castro’s Cuba, released in 1968, is one of the great movies of its era.” Michael Sragow, New Yorker
Omara: Cuba (90 mins, Cuba, 2016)
Director: Lester Hamlet
July 22, 2016, 6:45pm
This moving documentary about the life and career of Omara Portuondo, known as the Diva of Buena Vista Social Club, features touching recollections by personalities of Cuban culture, including Eusebio Leal, Pablo Milanés, Chucho Valdés, José María Vitier, Rodulfo Vaillant, Amaury Pérez, Rosa Fornés, Luis Carbonell, Fernando Pérez, and Santiago Alfonso.
Join us for a filmmaker Q&A, mojitos and more Cuban sounds before and after this screening.