Nelsito's World

Living Dangerously

In 1950s Havana, a romance blooms between two young revolutionaries whose clandestine printing press publishes pamphlets meant to stir up rebellion against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. As their popularity grows, so, too, does their revolutionary zeal and their desire to mobilize other urban guerilla units.

Suite Habana

Dawn breaks in La Habana, and as the day advances we follow the simple lives of ten ordinary Cubans, with only sounds and images accompanied by music.

Madagascar

The 50-minute "Madagascar" has the resonance and eloquence of the best poetry, as it deftly turns an adolescent's search for identity into a metaphor for socialist Cuba. Laura is a professor at a shabby, stultifying college. Her daughter, Laurita, stops going to school, wishes to move to Madagascar and quickly races through several phases. One day, she looks like a heavy-metal fan, another like a bohemian who weeps at poetry and art. Slowly, she crosses the line from ordinary adolescent confusion to intense neurosis and beyond, finally becoming so obsessed with religion and good works that she brings 10 homeless children into the cramped house she shares with her mother and grandmother.

Defiant Souls

Santiago de Cuba, January 19th, 1819. Coming from Lausanne, Enrique Faber, a Swiss doctor and surgeon, arrives on the island, a Spanish province, hoping to find his son, who has been kidnapped…

José Martí, the Eye of the Canary

This historical drama, depicting different phases in the late childhood and youth of the so-called "Apostle of Cuba" José Martí, is most of the time a biopic full of commonplaces often found in this genre, directed by Fernando Pérez, one of the most respected names in Cuban cinema.

Last Days in Havana

The story of a friendship in a city on the verge of substantial change. Miguel dreams of settling in New York while he waits for a visa that never seems to arrive, and Diego, a HIV-positive homosexual man, puts his dreams and cheerfulness to good use in his struggle to carry on enjoying every single day of his life from a rickety old bed in his small bedroom.

Life Is to Whistle

Three characters in present-day Havana must choose between clinging to their self-restricting beliefs, or getting rid of them to live more freely. Ballerina Mariana has promised God celibacy if she gets the role of "Giselle"; Social-worker Julia always faints after hearing a certain word; and pot-smoking percussionist Elpidio was abandoned by his mother, coincidentally named Cuba, some time ago and has not yet gotten over the loss.

Hello Hemingway

The plot, set in Havana in the last period of Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship, follows a young girl whose aspirations to obtain a scholarship in America, against the odds, are paralleled with her reading of Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea".

The Angry Cid

Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, “Mio Cid”, is in love with Jimena, but the Count of Oviedo, his father, challenges him to a duel and is killed. He before him curses Rodrigo, that if he marries Jimena, he will lose his manly faculties. And, in fact, when he gets married, Rodrigo becomes effeminate.

Culpa

In a town plagued by the murders of the "Killer of the Seven Leathers", a prostitute helps a religious young man when he's attacked by hoodlums. He takes her to his ragged shack filled with Catholic objects, where she tries to seduce him.

Madrigal

Javier is an actor with an affinity for writing. When he begins his love story with Luisita, he does not know where the truth begins and ends. Fifteen years later he has converted his story into literature that relates his tragic love story in a creative way.

Rodar en Cuba

Documentary - Short Film

The Wall of Words

A mother struggles to hold her family together after her son succumbs to a disease that leaves him disabled.

Puerto Rico

Presents a socio-economic analysis of present day Puerto Rico. Uses archival footage, re-enactments of historic events, and interviews with participants to recount the long history of U.S. involvement in Puerto Rico and the anti-colonial struggle.

Memória Cubana

Through the files of Cuban cinema news program Noticieros ICAIC Latinoamericanos, the documentary shows the most relevant events of the second half of the 20th century as seen by the documentary filmmakers of the island. During three decades and under the general direction of Santiago Álvarez, these moviemakers witnessed almost everything: from the shivers of the Cold War to Bola de Nieve's piano solos; from the discovery of the killing fields in Cambodia to the Carnation Revolution in Portugal. In 2009, the original negatives of Noticieros ICAIC Latinoamericanos were declared part of the "world memory" by UNESCO.