Mañana
TXT: yoss photo: courtesy of alejandro moya

There are movies that are shrouded in controversy from their debut. And Tomorrow is one of them. Some critics accentuated the fact that it was the first Cuban independent film to be distributed by the ICAIC. Forerunners such as Humberto Padron’s Frutas en el café (Fruit in the Coffee), Carolina Nicola’s Así de simple (As simple as that) and Alejandro Brugués’ Personal Belongings never made it to the national commercial exhibition circuit. Others spoke of its sophisticated production design and screenplay. And then there were those who insulted the over-stereotyped characters and the vulgarity of the situations, and stigmatized it as just another light teleplay… such as Miguel Pardal in a derogatory comment that appeared in Habana Radio, which reached undeserving notoriety thanks to the excessive and paranoid reply from the young director Alejandro Moya.
With Tomorrow, Moya debuted as a filmmaker after many successful experiences on the small screen: assistant director in De tu sueño a mi sueño (1990) (From your Dream to my Dream), director of the series Todo al fuego (1997) (Everything to the Fire), and co-director of the controversial soap opera Salir de noche (2001) (Going out at Night). Even though the certain resemblance to a video clip, with excessive slow motion and a dizzy back and forth of shots reveals, in an unfortunate way, his relationship to television, the inspired and dynamic intertwined mounting and editing and the brilliant direction of the actors does show an authentic filmmaker. The film depicts a few key hours in the life of Tony (with newcomer Rafael Hernández in a role that is probably very close to his own life experience), the classic slick ‘daddy’s boy’, a superficial hedonist, with his own car, no job, no worries, and simultaneously embroiled with several women, like the possessive and somewhat bawdy Mónica and the angelical blonde who ends up not being that spiritual or innocent...

+ information pág. 144-145 The H Book 2008 09