Film Screenings / Programs / Series
CUBAN CULTURAL CENTER OF NEW YORK PRESENTS: 2024 SUMMER FILM FESTIVAL: INSULA
August 15 – August 22
August 15-22, 2024
Anthology collaborates once again with the Cuban Cultural Center of New York to host this festival showcasing a series of highly acclaimed feature films and documentaries by Cuban and American filmmakers. Each of the films selected here portrays human struggle and survival through a distinctive prism – political, social, philosophical, religious, or artistic – yet all permeated by the indelible weight of an Island (Insula).
For more info about the Cuban Cultural Center of New York visit: https://www.cubanculturalcenter.org/
Special thanks to Iraida Iturralde & and Perla Rozencvaig (CCCNY).
NYC PREMIERE!
Gloria Rolando
SISTERS OF THE HEART / HERMANAS DEL CORAZON
2024, 180 min, digital. In Spanish with English subtitles.
A fascinating three-part documentary on the educational mission of the Oblate Sisters throughout the first half of the 20th century in Cuba. The first order of black nuns in the world, it was founded against all odds in Baltimore, Maryland in 1829. Their admirable legacy on the Island had been all but lost until disinterred by Afro-Cuban filmmaker Gloria Rolando.
Thurs, Aug 15 at 7:00 and Thurs, Aug 22 at 7:00.
NYC PREMIERE!
Fernando Fraguela Fosado
WOMEN DREAMING A NATION / MUJERES QUE SUEÑAN UN PAÍS
2024, 87 min, digital. In Spanish with English subtitles.
Three Cuban women activists, at the center of the civic protests of recent years, tell their stories of blackmail, forced exile, and repression. Women, mothers, and artists, they describe today’s Cuba from the San Isidro hunger strike to the mass protests across the island on July 11, 2021.
Fri, Aug 16 at 6:30 and Mon, Aug 19 at 8:45.
The Aug 16 screening will be followed by a Q&A with Anamely Ramos, one of the subjects of the film!
FILMMAKER IN PERSON ON AUG 21!
Miguel Coyula
BLUE HEART / CORAZÓN AZUL
2021, 104 min, digital. In Spanish with English subtitles.
In an alternate reality, Fidel Castro uses genetic engineering to build the “new man” and thus save utopia. The experiment fails as these beings are highly intelligent but also cruel and uncontrollable. Rejected by their own creators, a group organizes a series of terrorist actions, and chaos reigns on the island. Elena, one of its members, traces the origin of her genes and begins a journey to try to discover her humanity.
Fri, Aug 16 at 9:00 and Wed, Aug 21 at 6:30.
Miguel Coyula will be here in person on Wed, Aug 21!
John Sturges
THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA
1958, 87 min, 35mm-to-DCP
“Ernest Hemingway’s seemingly simple story is brought vividly to the screen by director John Sturges, actor Spencer Tracy, and cinematographer James Wong Howe. Tracy plays an elderly fisherman in 1950s Cuba. It’s been 84 days since he last caught a fish with his one-man skiff. When he decides to travel farther and farther into deeper waters, he finds himself in the fight of his life. Gorgeously shot in early Eastmancolor, the film earned Howe his seventh Academy Award nomination as he seamlessly integrated new bluescreen technology, allowing the foreground and background to be captured separately.” –GEORGE EASTMAN MUSEUM
Sat, Aug 17 at 3:45 and Mon, Aug 19 at 6:30.
Julian Schnabel
BEFORE NIGHT FALLS
2000, 135 min, 35mm. In English, Spanish, Russian, and French with English subtitles.
Featuring an Oscar-winning performance by Javier Bardem, BEFORE NIGHT FALLS depicts the life and work of late Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas. Victimized by a government that banned his books and jailed him for a crime he didn’t commit, Arenas endured unspeakable persecution in a courageous stand against censorship and oppression. Without a country but not without integrity, he fled to America where he continued to fight for personal expression and produced a stirring body of work.
Sat, Aug 17 at 6:00 and Sun, Aug 18 at 3:30.
NYC PREMIERE!
Pavel Giroud
THE PADILLA AFFAIR / EL CASO PADILLA
2022, 78 min, digital. In Spanish with English subtitles.
In 1971, poet Heberto Padilla is arrested by the Cuban revolutionary government. His arrest turns into a notorious case of public expiation of guilt, in which the poet not only declares himself a counterrevolutionary but also betrays a series of friends, including even his wife. The writer’s filmed mea culpa, here shown to the public for the first time, marks the narrative line of a story, punctuated by interventions from Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jorge Edwards, Carlos Fuentes, and Fidel Castro, that opens a window to explore aspects of Cuba’s past that reverberate in its present.
Sat, Aug 17 at 9:15 and Tues, Aug 20 at 6:45.
Alán González
WILD WOMAN / LA MUJER SALVAJE
2023, 93 min, digital. In Spanish with English subtitles.
In a Havana slum, a woman survives a bloody fight between her husband and her lover. In a desperate attempt to spare her son from the scandal, she decides to run away with him, but a video of the incident has already gone viral.
Sun, Aug 18 at 6:45 and Wed, Aug 21 at 9:00.
Juan Pin Vilar
FITO’S HAVANA / LA HABANA DE FITO
2023, 62 min, digital. In Spanish with English subtitles.
In the late 1980s, Argentine rock icon Fito Páez first visited Havana, invited by Pablo Milanés. His presence at a music festival shook the island, to which he would return many times. For him, it was love at first sight. Thirty years later, sitting on the terrace of a traditional hotel in Havana, Fito recounts his story with Cuba, its music, its people, as well as its complex reality and contradictions.
Sun, Aug 18 at 9:00 and Tues, Aug 20 at 8:45.
