Carlos Cruz
Five domestic stories, five characters, and their families. Small stories that magnify their small ambitions, pettiness, hope, and discouragement, which for each of them are moving, definitive and tragic.
The film follows the rise to fame of venezuelan singer Felipe Pirela. From the beginnings when he worked alongside Billo Frometa and his band Billo's Caracas Boys to the days of his death at the hands of a drug dealer.
A magician announces in a show that in Ciénaga, a small town on the Colombian Atlantic Coast, there's a little girl whose hair is made of real gold: Juana. The Deacon, the Mayor, and the greedy population of this town find in this unusual gift the solution of their financial difficulties. But sooner or later, Juana's gift will become in a curse she'll try to fight.
Lorenzo, a Cuban policeman specializing in grave robberies is sent to Havana to investigate the death of a Havana-born German national, Hermann (or German in Spanish) found in a famous grave. Lorenzo recounts his findings to the police chief (Major Anancio) as he investigates Dora, an elevator operator and Herrmann's landlady, Aguila and Silvia (who work for Cultural Affairs), Chrissy (a British-born Socialist Internationalist lover), Xiomara (Hermann's mother and a local drag queen as well), a dwarf, and a false Guatemalan who had raped Chrissy during her internationalist "love/sex campaign" in Guatemala. These are the main, but not the only characters, one must absolutely follow to make sense of the plot.
The story of friendship between two little girls of different races, one white, Susana, and one black, Rita, in Equatorial Guinea, including years 1950 and 1961. Susana's gonna be with her friend discover the fascinating world of Africa, while reaching for his wife and lives the love of one man, Diego.
Explores the sensuous rhythms and movements of the dance style known as the rumba, as demonstrated by the celebrated Havana rumbero Papá Montero. Blending vintage documentary footage with meticulously staged recreations, the dancer's tragic assassination at Carnival is connected with the passing of a cultural era in Cuban life.
Oreste is a man in the thirties and looks somewhat disheveled. One day, he decides to leave the small port of Arenales where he has lived to leave without a certain direction aboard 'El Mañana', a dilapidated steamboat. Moments before sailing, you will meet two strange characters: Prince Patagón and Mascaró. Together, they will sail the sea and will have to face many challenges.
Jose Luis, a young boy with aspirations to become a scriptwriter and director of cinema, is dazzled on having known the beautiful Sissy. To impress her, he appears as the director who looks for a not professional actress. She, that the whole life has dreamed of being 'discovered' but that it is not naive with men, pretends not to be interested. They begin a relationship in wich both are not as they wanted to be.
A satire about the life of the Cuban people. Alicia, a culture instructor, is sent to a small town "Maravillas", which is itself an exaggerated, but very ingenious reflection of the real Cuba. The adventures that she has there are almost as crazy and senseless as the ones lived by the other Alice (in Wonderland), reflecting the indoctrination, coercion, absolutims, and many other everyday problems in Cuban society.
Story shows the genesis of the career and the rise of Esther the most beloved actress of most popular theater in Havana at the turn of the 19th century.
A prestigious theater group in crisis prepares for the staging of a famous love tragedy. Mirtha, an actress marked by frustration, decides to leave the theater when a guest conductor offered a starring role. The incorporation of young actors, unscrupulous, and an inspector trigger a series of situations that will endanger the reputation and power of the actress who heads the group.
