Cuba

En la Puta Vida (Tricky Life)

Studio: Venevision Intl Films Release Date: 02/05/2008 Run time: 100 minutes Rating: Nr

Fresa Y Chocolate

Me Olvide De Vivir

Movie DVD

Fidel: The Untold Story

Whether dismissed as a relic or revered as a savior, all agree that Fidel Castro, nearing 44 years as the leader of Cuba, is one of the most influential and controversial figures of our time. Rarely are Americans given a chance to see inside the world of this socialist leader. The new documentary film FIDEL by Estela Bravo offers a unique opportunity to view the man through exclusive interviews with Castro himself, historians, public figures and close friends, with rare footage from the Cuban State archives.

Alice Walker, Harry Belafonte, and Sydney Pollack discuss Fidel as a person, while former and current US government figures including Arthur Schlesinger, Ramsey Clark, Wayne Smith, Congressman Charles Rangel and a former CIA agent offer political and historical perspectives on Castro and the long-standing US embargo against Cuba. Family members and close friends, including Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, offer a window into the rarely seen personal life of Fidel.

Bravo's camera captures Fidel Castro swimming with bodyguards, visiting his childhood home and school, joking with Nelson Mandela, Ted Turner and Muhammad Ali, meeting Elian Gonzalez, and celebrating his birthday with members of the Buena Vista Social Club. Juxtaposing the personal anecdotal with history of the Cuban revolution and the fight to survive the post-Soviet period, FIDEL tells a previously untold story and presents a new view of this compelling figure.

Habana Blues

Studio: Warnervision Release Date: 09/30/2008 Run time: 115 minutes Rating: Nr

Barrio Cuba

Cast: Jorge Perugorria (Upcoming Steven Soderbergh Film Guerrilla-The Che Guevara Story and the Oscar Nominated Strawberry & Chocolate ) Luisa Maria Jimenez ( I am Cuba ) & Mario Limonta (Ariel & Goya Award Winner Miel Para Oshun )Director: Humberto Solas (Cannes Film Festival Winner for Cecilia & Cuba s oficial Selection for the Academy Awards Un Hombre de xito )Magalis Ignacio Vivian Miguelito and Santo: the leading characters of BARRIO CUBA are all human beings striving for a little happiness in La Habana. They live life to its fullest propelling themselves over and over against an uncertain fate searching for a way out. The harsh reality of the barrio contests them but they never lose the hope of a better future of regaining a lost love or finding a new one of improving themselves.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: LATIN/DRAMA UPC: 735978405075 Manufacturer No: LF0507

Waiting List

Studio: Genius Products Inc Release Date: 06/19/2007 Run time: 106 minutes Rating: Nr

Bitter Sugar

Studio: New Yorker Films Video Release Date: 03/13/2001

In what may be the angriest portrait of Cuba ever made, director Leon Ichaso (Crossover Dreams) charts the journey of one young man from patriot to disillusioned dropout to angry rebel. Gustavo (René Lavan) is an idealistic young Marxist scholar who dreams of attending the University of Prague. When he falls for an earthy dancer with a more pragmatic view of her homeland, who plans to escape to Florida, his ideals are systematically chipped away in the face of poverty, repression, corruption, and police brutality until it all becomes too much for him to bear. A far cry from the more romantic work of Tomás Gutiérrez Alea (Strawberry and Chocolate), this film speaks volumes about a generation of exiles burning with anger and hate for Castro and his regime. It's also manipulative and heavy-handed, with Gustavo less a hero than a straw figure poised for a fall, and it's far less revealing than such self-critical Cuban features as Portrait of Teresa and Memories of Underdevelopment. But its vivid and passionate feelings of betrayal can hardly be dismissed. Ichaso shot portions of the film in Cuba and smuggled the footage out, but Santo Domingo doubles for Havana through the bulk of the feature. --Sean Axmaker

101 Rent Boys

I Am Cuba

A most acclaimed discovery, I Am Cuba will change your view of cinema forever! Filmed by great Russian director Mikhail Kalatozov (The Cranes Are Flying), I Am Cuba is an epic poem to Communist kitsch--a whirling, feverish dance through the sensuous decadence of Battista's Havana and the grinding poverty and oppression of the Cuban people. Presented jointly by master directors Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, I Am Cuba has received universal acclaim and admiration from around the world as a true classic of world cinema. In Spanish and Russian with English subtitles. 140 minutes.