MFDB

Storyline

Cuba - the island where dreams clash. It was the gateway to the New World, the port of call for the American underworld, a crossroads for drug smuggeling. It has brought us cigars, sugar and rum. And a Socialist Revolution: Cuba stands for schools for everybody, and an eternal struggle for freedom. Cuba may seem synonymous with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, but its history was shaped by adventurer Christopher Columbus, freedom fighter José Martí, Dictator Fulgenico Batista, Mafia Boss Meyer Lansky and many others.

For the first time ever, the Russian state film archives of Krasnogorsk, the Red Army and KGB's film archives and the Cuban State Film Archive ICAIC have granted us access to their Cuban treasures. We tell Cuban history from a transnational perspective. All footage has been newly scanned, digitally restored and re-mastered, from the Spanish-American War of 1898, which was the first war in history ever to be filmed.

8x45', 8x52'