7pm, each Thursdays February 20-March 27
Opening night: "Ciudad en Rojo" (City in Red)
(2009, 90 min)
Directed by Rebeca Chávez
In the late 1950s, the city of Santiago de Cuba was afire, the site of some of the fiercest resistance to the murderous dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. The film's narrative unfolds over 24 hours in the lives of several youthful members of the underground as they confront their own uncertainty about the morality of armed struggle and the necessity of severing bonds that had seemed unbreakable.
The 5th Annual Minnesota Cuban Film Festival will once again present a selection of the best new and vintage Cuban cinema. As with last year's festival, we are working with ICAIC (Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográficos), the Cuban Film Institute, and partnering with the Film Society of Minneapolis/St. Paul. This year the theme is Women and Afro Cubans in Cuban Cinema, ranging from hard-to-find vintage documentaries to the most recent full-length feature films. The festival is dedicated to the continuing fight for the release of the Cuban 5. All the films will feature Afro-Cuban/women directors and actors or Afro-Cuban/women characters as the main protagonists. This is in tribute to the role the Cuban Revolution played in elevating the role of women in Cuban society, industry and government and the ongoing struggle for racial equality. And as in previous years, the films will be followed by discussions at the adjoining Pracna on Main and a closing night party.