Oggun: An Eternal Presence
Sat 12 Nov 2022
Time: 17.15
Location: CCA
Access Info: Film (CC)
Time: 17.15
Location: CCA
Access Info: Film (CC)
Time: 18.45
Location: CCA
Access Info: Film (CC) + Q&A (BSL)
Time: 20:30
Location: CCA
Access Info: Film (CC)
Time: 22:00 – 02:00
Location: CCA
Time: 14:30
Location: GFT
In egalitarian societies, some are of course, more equal than others, and Cuba is no exception. On the island, inequality is, as elsewhere, often structured around the axis of race. … Continue reading Double Consciousness – The Paradox of Race in Cuba
Gloria Rolando is one of the most significant Cuban filmmakers currently working, a documentarian who has done groundbreaking work charting the complex history of Black people, often Black women, who … Continue reading Gloria Rolando – Eternal Presences
Glasgow 29 April 2022, 6pm Live Music + Historias de La Musica Cubana / Fusion in Cuban Music Q&A Director Arturo Sotto. 8.15pm – Queens of the Revolution (CC) After … Continue reading Spring Festival
WOOP! 20 years since Glasgow was first twinned with Havana! How are we celebrating? BIG! A full night of Cuban culture on Friday 29 April at CCA Glasgow– LIVE MUSIC … Continue reading Havana Glasgow Film Festival
One of the most remarkable films we’ve ever shown at Havana Glasgow Film Festival, and one that got the best audience reception, was Rebecca Heidenberg’s Queens of the Revolution, a … Continue reading Queens of the Revolution
Arturo Sotto is one of the most versatile directors in contemporary Cuban cinema, whose career and diverse body of work was celebrated at last year’s’ Havana Glasgow Film Festival. This … Continue reading The Sound of Cuba
Cuba, certainly at one point, had nothing to be proud of in its treatment of its queer communities, but things have changed to the point where it’s now one of the most progressive countries on LGBT rights outside of Europe, even if the old myths remain. It has one of the highest degrees of trans visibility anywhere in the world, with gender corrective surgery provided by the health service, and equal treatment in employment law guaranteed.
The theme of this year’s Havana Glasgow Film Festival is ‘Extraordinary Cuba’, and we are examining the ways in which this fiercely independent island nation is truly extraordinary, in its … Continue reading Extraordinary Cuba – An Interview with Michael Chanan
The Cold War cultivated an atmosphere of high paranoia, and threw up many intriguing stories of
spies, espionage and counter-espionage. One of the most notorious and comic example is the CIA’s reputed, doomed attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, through a series of increasingly outlandish manoeuvres that would sound more at home in Austin Powers than James Bond, ranging from explosive cigars, poisoned pens to bacillus-infested scuba diving suits, with optional booby trapped conch.
Sometimes at Havana Glasgow Film Festival we look to re-screen our most popular films, or films that we think deserve a wider audience. One such film is Patricia Ramos’ prize-winning El … Continue reading A Roof With a View – El Techo
Cuba is famous around the world for many things, from its music to its politics, but is perhaps not so famous for its sport. In fact, shortly after the revolution … Continue reading Running For The Revolution – The Power and Politics of Sport
Cuban music is justly famous worldwide, and arguably the country’s greatest export, one that can effortlessly transcend any cultural embargoes, no matter how petty or arbitrary. The island is renowned … Continue reading Music From the Edge of Time
Arturo Sotto’s “Breton is a Baby” is a discursive documentary which explores a subject you don’t often hear discussed in relation to Cuba – its sheer strangeness. Titled partly as a joke around Andre Breton, the French poet who founded the movement in 1924, the films’s premise is that “Surrealism is part of Latin America in a highly organic manner”, and after watching this film, you won’t disagree.
Miriam Rodero, Nov 2021 This year, Havana Glasgow Film Festival will be dedicating Saturday 20 November to the films of Arturo Sotto. The screenings kick off with Amor Vertical (1997), … Continue reading Arturo Sotto’s ‘Vertical Love’ and ‘Mantis Nest’ – Journeys of Escaping
Running for the Revolution is the story of Cuba’s greatest Olympic track and field athlete Alberto Juantorena. His gold medal success at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games catapulted him onto the world stage…
Fidel Up Close delves into the lesser known facets of Fidel Castro’s personal and intimate life from the perspective of those closest to him, including his children, close family members, delegates and employees. The documentary spans Fidel’s…
Based on the life of Benny Moré, El Benny spans More’s career from the mid 1940’s, until his untimely death in the early 1960’s at the age of 44. The film concentrates on a period in the early 1950s when Moré leaves Mexico and starts his own ‘Banda Gigante’ back in Cuba..
Olexandr Savchenko, “Sacha,” was one year old when the explosion of the nuclear power plant Vladimir Ilich Lenin in Chernobyl occurred on April 26, 1986. He lived in Chernigov, a village in the Ukrainian countryside near the area of the accident…
Hailed as the last soldiers of the Cold War, The Cuban Five were an elite group of undercover agents who operated out of Florida in the 1990s. Abandoning unsuspecting families to ‘defect’ to America, they assumed new identities, led double lives and sacrificed everything to defend Castro’s Cuba…
irst in a series about small business owners who are implementing environmentally and socially sustainable practices. The film focuses on Nayvis Díaz Labaut, an engineer who set up Vélo Cuba – a bike repair shop to promote cycling in Havana…
Fishermen from the ‘fifth list’ are the economic backbone and largest labor force of all fishing communities in Cuba. Fishing is their sustenance, culture and life. At the same time, they acknowledge that the future of fisheries depends on the balance between their economic needs…
A film about the elements – hurricanes and rain, the sea and the earth. About Caibarién, a fishing port on the north coast of Cuba devastated by Hurricane Irma on 9th September 2017…
Architecture student Estela (Silvia Aguila) makes a suicide attempt after her plans for solving Havana’s housing shortage are rejected. This brings her into contact with earthy, cynical hospital nurse Ernesto (Jorge Perugorria). Estela invites him home for dinner…
In 2017, the Cuban government approved the State Plan to confront climate change, known as ‘Tarea Vida’ (Life Task). As a small Caribbean island, Cuba is disproportionately affected by climate change through extreme weather events, heat waves, drought, torrential rain…
inspired by the surrealist artist Andres Breton. They travel to urban and rural places, observing local customs and rituals, partaking in local cuisines and interacting with entrepreneurs…
Cuban Music Video Music Video maker based in Glasgow Alejandro Valera Losa and Cuban filmmaker Arturo Sotto based in Havana will screen and discuss their latest Los Van Van video clip and talk about…
It is the summer of 1994 in Cuba, and tensions are high amidst the migratory crisis with the USA. In the village of Siboney, a young woman, Sugar, is convicted of murder …
Three independent stories linked to a writer’s room with imaginative crisis where people go to tell their stories, hoping someday to find fame as a character in a novel…
Music, history and emotion fuel this award-winning tribute to Los Zafiros – the Beatles of 1960s Cuba. To those whose lives they briefly touched, Los Zafiros are legends. A musical phenomenon molded by their time and place, The Sapphires caused a sensation in Havana and beyond throughout the 1960s…
Three young friends with their own ambitions meet up each day to talk about their lives. Bored and looking for a better future, they decide to set up their own business with what few resources they have. The pursuit of their dream doesn’t come without a cost but this ultimately leads them to a new maturity…
Since 1985, El Mejunje has offered refuge for people marginalized under Castro and a stage for their drag shows, punk rock and spoken word performances. From the beginning, El Mejunje’s performers risked persecution and violence from both the Cuban state and society at large…