Curtain of Water

As the walls of Cuba's ageing infrastructure continue to crumble, a burgeoning street art scene is born in Havana. Murals of hand-painted masked character – Supermalo – with the tag “2+2=5?” have begun to appear in seemingly every corner of the heavily foot trafficked city.

A documentary on the origins of Changüí.

A documentary on the origins of Cuban Son.

In a culture where cremation is unusual, cemeteries fill up rapidly. In Latin America and in some other places, to solve the problem, remains are frequently exhumed. In Cuba, two year after interment. Relatives are invited to observe the little ritual. The music of the film is drawn from requiems from different periods. Twelve pieces by seven different composers are quoted. Together, they make up a traditional requiem, although only a few passages from the "dies irae" have been included, and other sections are slightly abbreviated.

Extremely rare Cuban documentary reveals rockers that find liberty by injecting themselves with the HIV virus, at a time when this was almost synonymous with a death sentence.

The Kafkaesque world of Cuba under Castro's rule is brought to light in this reconstruction of the 1989 trial and execution of General Arnaldo Ochoa Sanchez, the highest-ranking general and hero of the revolution, and commander of the Angolan and Ethiopian campaigns.

Shot in Cuba in 1961, this documentary follows a volunteer militia brigade organized in defense of the Cuban Revolution. Joris Ivens and his crew observe military training, daily life, and collective discipline among civilian volunteers. The film emphasizes popular mobilization as a defining feature of the revolutionary state.

A ship of athletes training on the rough seas becomes a symbol of Castro’s Cuba, the games projected on the backdrop of political struggle. This is the story of a ship and of a sports delegation whom the enemy tried to stop from participating in the Tenth Central American and Caribbean Games.

The fifties in Cuba, at the time of the "dias felices", the happy days, the American mobsters were the kings of the country, Hemingway lived there, the Hollywood stars came to hide their secrets, the number of bars and clubs rose amazingly, celebrities came to spend vacation, the business of cigars flourished, gambling was not a vice, everybody was dancing on frenzied music, while rum and cigars were flowing. At the beginning of the fifties, the huge storm that threatened Cuba was unpredictable.

When he was executed outside a Havana prison on March 11, 1961, the strange story of William Morgan seemed to vanish from the popular imagination as quickly as it had appeared. William Alexander Morgan was one of only a couple dozen US citizens who joined Cuban rebel forces, fighting for Fidel Castro in 1957. With government documents recently declassified, new information has come to light and Morgan’s story has come back into the public eye. American Comandante has the makings of a Cold War thriller— with adventure, spies and historical figures such as J. Edgar Hoover and Chè Guevera. Eyewitness accounts from Morgan’s widow and several Cubans who fought alongside him, as well as commentary from journalists and biographers, tell the story of a man who transformed from a failure to a hero and celebrity. American Comandante is a quintessential American story of a man who reinvented himself.

Cuban drummer Elvis García reflects on his journey from Havana to Miami, struggling to make his way in the American city as a professional musician.