Black Cuban Short Films: A Contemporary Wayward Selection  


Date: Wed 9 Nov 2022
Time: 17.50 – 20:00
Location: CCA
Category: N/C 18+

Access Info: Film (CC) + Q&A (BSL)

What are you expecting from Black Cuban Cinema? It is probably not here.

This event brings together an intriguing selection of seven contemporary short films in different formats and scales: animation, documentary, experimental, fiction and videoclips, all together, all made by contemporary Black Cuban filmmakers, some who live abroad, some who remain on the island.

This unpredictable blend is made up of an intimate approach to sexuality and gender identity, a social media comedy, an experimental ritual to San Lazaro, an analogy between cimarronismo and homosexuality, a real life project that promotes free expression via Hip-Hop among marginalised youth, an experiment in digital poetics, and two dramas, one about a circus and its lion during the Special Period and an energetic different kind of Cuban story, about two top internet influencers competing to be number one. 

Curated by David Sierra, who has been participating in Film Hub Scotland’s New Promoter scheme

Song To San Lazaro / Canto A San Lazaro

Raydel Araoz I Cuba 2009 I 4m I Music Video by Grupo Hipálage

Winner of the 2009 Lucas Award for Best Folk Music Video

The Fugitives / Los Cimarrones

Damián Sainz Edwards I Cuba 2021 I 12m I Spanish with English subtitles I Fiction 

The rainforest at night hides the deepest terrors of Orestes: the darkness, the slave spirits and the homosexuality of his brother                   

Obsession / Obsesión

Magia López I Cuba 2018 I 10m I Spanish with English subtitles I Documentary

Over the last 20 years, Cuban hip hop duo Obsesión made up by Alexei Rodríguez (aka: El Tipo Este) and Magia Lopez (manager of The Cuban Rap Agency) have used hip hop as an expressive tool for young people to address and eliminate discrimination.

Archetypes / Arquetipos

Raydel Araoz I Cuba 2009 I 6m I Spanish with English subtitles I Experimental 

In this audiovisual collage a group of women talk candidly about their breasts and men’s penises.

DgitalB   

Pablo D. Herrera Veitia I Scotland 2006 I 9m I Spanish and English I Experimental 

From a dream, to an intimate song made public, to an interview on hiphop, to an assessment of culture that intervenes with and entangles intricate associations between the local and Diaspora, dgitalB is a crossroads for electric voices in transit. Pablo D. Herrera Veitia is an Afro-Cuban hip hop producer and urban music manager. 

Mondongo Cubano 

Ricardo Bacallao I Cuba 2014 I 10m    I Spanish with English subtitles I Fiction

During the worst economic crisis in Cuba in the 90s, a lion tamer called Manolo decides to bring home a lion from the National Circus  

The Fight / El Combate   

Pedro Pulido Brizuela I Cuba 2022 I 36m I Spanish with English subtitles I Fiction 

Two Influencers, obsessed with obtaining the largest number of followers on the networks, are involved in a boxing match, incited by a group of netizens. Through an entire media show, the followers will have to define the result.

Followed by Q&A with Cuban directors Ricardo Bacallao and Magia López Cabrera and writers Hugo Rivalta and Brian Beadie

Access notes: Bright images, flashing images, flashing lights, loud sounds
Content notes: Depiction of death, nudity and sex 

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