Havana La Habana
Cuba at a Crossroads: A View from Havana
An examination of the city and people of Havana, Cuba through interviews by an American filmmaker with residents of the city.
Director Glenn Gebhard
Genre Documentary
Year 1996
Length 28 min.
Language English and Spanish
Subtitles English
Cuba 111
Shows poor living conditions in a rundown area of Old Havana and the ways residents cope with the economic crisis.
Directors Dirk Vandersypen, Stev van Thielen
Genre Documentary
Year 1995
Length 54 min.
Language Spanish
Subtitles English
Soy Cuba I Am Cuba
A dramatization of the decadence of Batista's Havana and the poverty that fueled the Cuban Revolution.
Director Michail Kalatosow
Genre Documentary
Year 1964
Length 141 min.
Language Spanish
Subtitles French, German
Habanastation
Directed mainly for kids, the film speaks of a Havana that "reveals two distinct faces, from the everyday life of a couple of kids." [From IMDb]
Director Ian Padrón
Genre Drama
Year 2011
Length 96 min.
Language Spanish
Subtitles English
Suite Habana
A city symphony showing a simple day in the life of ten ordinary people of Havana. Images, sound and music express the everyday events of a peculiar and unique reality.
Directors Fernando Pérez
Genre Drama-Documentary
Year 2003
Length 80 min.
Language Spanish
Subtitles English, French, German
Últimos días en la Habana Last Days in Havana
A tragicomedy about friendship in a city on the verge of substantial change. The lead characters are two friends living in Havana: Miguel, a dishwasher who dreams of settling in New York, and Diego, a homosexual man suffering from AIDS.
Director Fernando Peréz
Genre Drama
Year 2016
Length 93 min.
Language Spanish
Subtitles English, French, German
Watch Trailer Online
Elena
Documentary on Elena, an apartment building in the central district of Havana, Cuba. In the central district of Havana about half of all the residential buildings are badly in need of repair, with 230 buildings collapsing every.Some have been waiting since 1970 for government aid in repairing them.
Director Marcelo Martín
Genre Documentary
Year 2012
Length 42 min.
Language Spanish
Subtitles English
El Techo The Roof
Three friends meet every day on the rooftops of Havana, where they discuss life. One raises pigeons, one is pregnant and doesn't know who the father is, and one decides to open a rooftop pizzeria.
Directors Patricia Ramos
Genre Drama
Year 2017
Length 75 min.
Language Spanish
Subtitles English
Conducta Behavior
Eleven-year-old Chala lives alone with his addicted mother, and trains fighting dogs to make ends meet. Chala has great respect for his sixth-grade teacher, Carmela, but when Carmela becomes ill, a new teacher, unable to handle Chala's behavior, takes action.
Director Ernesto Daranas
Genre Drama
Year 2014
Length 108 min.
Language Spanish
Subtitles French, German
Memorias del subdesarrollo Memories of Underdevelopment
Sergio, a bourgeois intellectual Cuban, is alone in the wake of the Bay of Pigs. Sergio observes the constant threat of foreign invasion while chasing young women all over Havana. Based on the novel by Edmundo Desnoes.
Director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea
Genre Drama
Year 1968
Length 98 min.
Language Spanish
Subtitles English
Real sucio Habana Dirty Real Havana
The film weaves together conversations with Cuban writer Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, which took place in Havana over a four-year period, with excerpts from his narrative and poetry.
Directors Claudia Ferman
Genre Documentary
Year 2009
Length 42 min.
Language English and Spanish
Subtitles English
Watch a lecture by the filmmaker online
When Castro Seized the Hilton
The Havana Hilton went from being a capitalistic monument to become the main headquarters of Cuban communism. The takeover was one of the strongest symbols of the changes that came to dominate the dramatic developments in Cuba, and its relationship with the U.S.
Director Bjarte Thoresen
Genre Documentary
Year 2009
Length 53 min.
Language English, Norwegian, Spanish
Subtitles N/A
Quiéreme y verás Love Me and You'll See
Three individuals attempt to rob a bank in Old Havana, on December 31, 1958 but an unforeseen delay thwarts the big blow. Years later, a new incident will awaken the adventurous passion of these three friends who feel reborn to carry out their old lost illusions.
Director Daniel Diaz Torres
Genre Drama
Year 1994
Length 50 min.
Language Spanish
Subtitles French, German
Madagascar
A mother and daughter share a turbulent relationship against the backdrop of social change in Cuba.
Directors Fernando Pérez
Genre Drama
Year 1994
Length 50 min.
Language Spanish
Subtitles French, German
Urban Design and Planning in Havana: An Historical Perspective
This video examines the social, political and geographic influences on what today is the largest collection of colonial architecture in the Americas by offering a guide to Havana's urban design through three periods from 1519 to the present day: colonial, neo-colonial, and Revolutionary.
Director Not listed
Genre Documentary
Year 2001
Length 39 min.
Language Not listed
Subtitles Not listed
Sources
Young, Elliott. "Between the Market and a Hard Place: Fernando Pérez's "Suite Habana" in a Post-utopian Cuba." Cuban Studies 38 (2007): 26-49. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24487245.