The Sugar Curtain
Cuba, 2006, 80 mins
Director: Camila Guzmán Urzúa
Website
1:00pm, Sun, Nov 4
at Library
Festivals
- 2007 San Francisco International Film Festival
- 2007 Tribeca Film Festival
- Prix Louis Marcorelles, 2007 Cinéma du réel
- 2007 Berlin International Film Festival
- 2006 Toronto International Film Festival
- FIPRESCI Award, Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema
Description
In this touching autobiographical portrait, Cuban raised filmmaker Camila Guzmán Urzúa returns to her elementary school, favorite gathering places, and other sites of her childhood in Havana to reflect with former classmates on her childhood and adolescence during the golden years of the Cuban Revolution.
Growing up during the 70s and 80s, Cuba seemed like a paradise, where the state provided everything and Camila was part of an idealistic generation of young "Pioneers" enthusiastically dedicated to building a new society. Despite their disillusionment, Camila and her former classmates remain nostalgic about a meaningful time in their lives and in the lives of their parents, the Revolution's first generation.
Blending alternately fond and disenchanted reminiscences with historical footage and photos, views of the sad remnants of deserted or decaying buildings in Havana, and
scenes of the boisterous vitality of today's Cuban schoolchildren, the Sugar Curtain offers a provocative perspective on this remarkable country.