Sexuality and Gender Sexualidad y género
Looking for a Space: Lesbians & Gay Men in Cuba Buscando un espacio: los homosexuales en Cuba
A documentary film examining the treatment of lesbians and gay men during the early years of the Cuban Revolution and perspectives of current residents of Cuba on questions of political ideology and sexual identity.
Director Kelly Anderson
Genre Documentary
Year 1993
Length 38 min.
Language Spanish
Subtitles English
Strawberry and Chocolate Fresa y chocolate
This Oscar nominated film is the story of two men who are opposites, one gay, the other straight, one a fierce communist, the other a fierce individualist, one suspicious, the other accepting, and how they come to love each other (via IMDb). Based on the story by Senel Paz: "El lobo, el bosque y el hombre nuevo".
Director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Juan Carlos Tabío
Genre Drama
Year 1993
Length 104 min.
Language Spanish
Subtitles English
Mariposas en el andamio Butterflies on the Scaffold
A rare view of what day-to-day life is like for the gay and drag community in modern Cuba.
Director Margaret Gilpin, Luis Felipe Bernaza
Genre Documentary
Year 1995
Length 74 min.
Language Spanish
Subtitles English
El acompañante
In 1980s Cuba, all people with HIV were required to live in state hospitals under control of the military. A boxer named Horacio, having failed a drug test, is sentenced to one of these hospitals, where he is to serve as "companion" to Daniel, the most disruptive patient there. A thoroughly unlikely friendship develops between the two men.
Director Pavel Giroud
Genre Drama
Year 2015
Length 104 min.
Language Spanish
Subtitles English
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
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Sources
Baron, Guy. "The Illusion of Equality: "Machismo" and Cuban Cinema of the Revolution." Bulletin of Latin American Research 29, no. 3 (2010): 354-66. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25741463.
Benamou, Catherine. "Cuban Cinema: On the Threshold of Gender." Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 15, no. 1 (1994): 51-75. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3346613.
Rich, B. Ruby, and Lourdes Arguelles. "Homosexuality, Homophobia, and Revolution: Notes toward an Understanding of the Cuban Lesbian and Gay Male Experience, Part II." Signs 11, no. 1 (1985): 120-36. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3174290.
Subero, Gustavo E. "The Silent Scream of the Locas in "Mariposas En El Andamio"." Bulletin of Latin American Research 28, no. 2 (2009): 266-83. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27734142.