Barrio Cuba
TXT: YOSS PHOTO: COURTESY OF LOW BUDGET FILM FESTIVAL

Although it was filmed first, this piece by Humberto Solás almost went unnoticed while the theaters still vibrated from Suite Habana, by Fernando Pérez.
The director of Cecilia has returned to digital format. His earlier Miel para Oshún (Honey for Oshun) was cloying, but in Barrio Cuba (Cuba neighborhood) there’s no space for plastic optimism.
Its luxurious cast tells every day stories. The beautiful nurse, disillusioned with Cuban men (the already consecrated Luisa María Jiménez) who ends up getting married with ulterior motives to an old foreigner. Her gay brother, kicked out of their home by a stern father (Enrique Molina, tremendous). There is an older carpenter (Mario Limonta, as solid as ever) who loves the nurse, and after being rejected drowns in alcoholism.
Solás clearly gets back his touch in this piece, and the film is authentic and hard hitting, sometimes almost documentary.
This is the intrigue of mysteries and intolerance, a linkage of immense generosity with the spirit of sacrifice that define Cuba at the beginning of the 21st century.
That nature is reflected in his unmistakable filming, impeccable, at times luminous, others barely visible, going from the majesty of Cuba’s Sierra Maestra mountains to the bareness of deep Havana multi-family housing...

+ information pág. 148-149 The H Book 2007 08