La Peña's Film Series presents the Bay Area debut of 16 Cuban works

La Peña and Cuba’s ICAIC Proudly Presents
New Cuban Filmmakers Film Series

During the four Wednesdays of August 09, a selection of 16 films of the new Cuban cinema will be shown for the first time in the Bay Area. The selection includes shorts, animation, documentaries and features by Cuba’s new generation of filmmakers.

As part of the Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográfico, ICAIC’s annual New Filmmakers Showcase 2001-2008 the films were selected by the ICAIC especially for La Peña Cultural Center. In Spanish with English subtitles.

All films at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley. 510-849-2568
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Gozar, comer, partir (Have a good time, Eat, Leave)
Dir. Arturo Infante, 2006 / 23 min.
Have a good time, eat, and leave are the three most conjugated verbs in Cuba today. Each is the center of the stories that make up this short film.

Tres veces dos (Three Times Two)
Dir. Pavel Giroud, Lester Hamlet, Esteban Insausti, 2004 / 84 min.
First story: a young photographer is shaken by strange images appearing in his prints as he prepares the exhibition that will launch his career. Second story: When she learns her teenage love is about to return, Lila is overcome by her memories. Third story: Two solitary characters substitute the absence of love with sexual fantasies until chance unites them at a stop light.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Horizontes (Horizons)
Adanoe Lima Cruz and Yemelí Cruz
Animation/ 2004 / 3 min.
Two characters with different dreams meet on a rooftop.

deMOLER (Demolition)
Alejandro Ramírez Anderson
Documentary/ 2004 / 12 min.
A sugar worker’s feelings about the demolition of the mill where he worked.

Tacones cercanos (High Heel Blues)
Jessica Rodríguez
Documentary / Mini-DV / 2008 / 20 min.
A Havana transvestite caught between the world of her aesthetic, ideal aspirations and the raw brutality of her daily life.

Video de familia (Family Video)
Humberto Padrón Fiction / 2001 / 47 min.
The family has decided to film a video-letter for Raulito who left the country four years ago. All goes well until his sister decides to reveal a secret.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Tic tac 6
Alien Ma
Animation, 2008 / 6 min.
An old man has a strange visitor.

Los dioses rotos (Broken Gods)
Ernesto Daranas
Fiction / 2008 / 90 min.
Laura is a university professor researching the famous Cuban pimp Alberto Yarini y Ponce de León, shot to death by his French rivals who controlled the prostitution business in Havana in the early 20th Century. Interested in demonstrating the legendary character’s relevance, she delves into one of the most complex zones of contemporary Havana life.


Wednesday, August 26, 2009
El propietario (The Owner)
Ernesto Piña, Wilber Noguel
Animation, 2007 / 7 min. / NO SUBTITLES
The constant struggle between rich and poor, assassins and innocent victims, owners and clients.

Extravío (Misplaced)
Daniellis Hernández
Documentary / 2007 / 20 min.
The filmmaker compares her vision of Africans with the reality she encounters on a trip to Manchester, England: she finds no poor, dependent, obedient Africans nor the habits and traditions she expected.

Cocuyos (Fireflies)
Tamara Segura
Fiction / Mini-DV / 2008 / 8 min.
A “supposedly mistaken” child´s decision is a consolation to his mother.

La cuchufleta (The Thingamajig)
Luis Angel Guevara Polanco
Documentary/ 2006 / 19 min.
La Cuchufleta, a farmer’s ingenious invention, is a micro electric generator that provides electricity to several homes in the Sierra Maestra.

El patio de mi casa (My Back Patio)
Patricia Ramos
Fiction / 2007 / 13 min.
A woman before a washtub–surrounded by clotheslines, grandparents and children–washes the entire family’s clothes and dreams. In the space of this Cuban patio, the protagonists’ dreams and reality merge at the same time.

Close up
Damián Saínz, Roger Herrera
Documentary / 2008 / 23 min.
Things seen and heard one Saturday night in G Street park in Havana’s Vedado district.

Decathexis
Adrián Replanski
Fiction / 2008 / 10 min.
Motivated by sheer curiosity, a man stops in front of a bathtub and extends his hand toward a book lying inside it. The interval that describes this movement becomes the building and unbuilding of a trauma, an encounter that cannot be symbolized.

Trovador (Troubador)
Sebastián Miló
Fiction / 2007 / 19 min.
Antonio is always trying to attract the attention of his girlfriend Maria, sitting next to her on a park bench where life goes on in a unique way. At nightfall, Antonio must decide to either abandon the situation or recognize that conscious strategies also apply to emotional relationships.

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