MN Cuban Film Festival: Fresa y chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate)
16th Minnesota Cuban Film Festival
Wednesday, May 21 at 7:00pm
Discussion follows the screening.
ABOUT THE FILM
In 1979 Cuba, flamboyant gay artist Diego (Jorge Perugorría) attempts to seduce the straight and strait-laced David (Vladimir Cruz), an idealistic young communist, and fails dismally. But David conspires to be “friends” with Diego so he can monitor the artist’s subversive life for the state. As Diego and David discuss politics, individuality and personal expression in Castro’s Cuba, a genuine friendship develops between the two.
The movie has been directed by Tomas Gutierrez Alea, at 72 the greatest of Cuba’s filmmakers and one of its most contradictory. An early supporter of Fidel Castro and the head of the revolution’s underground film unit, he made “Stories of the Revolution” (1960) about the overthrow of the Batista regime. He founded the national film unit. Yet his own films have questioned life under Castro: The famous “Memories of Underdevelopment” (1968) is about an intellectual adrift in revolutionary Havana, and now here is a film in which Diego taps his brow and says, “This is a thinking head – and if you have ideas, they ostracize you.”
