IF CUBA WOULDN'T EXIST, ONE SHOULD INVENT IT

Dir: Jana Richter
Documentary, DV, 33 min, Germany

Synopsis

I get to know Ruben, who is living in Cuba, studied art and is now working as a painter. His paintings show us Cuba in the way he experiences it. “Cuba is noise, movement and rhythm.“ From the pictures with slanting houses and bright colors we jump into reality with Yordanis and Ernesto.

Yordanis is a dancer and Ernesto owns a small dance school. “If one doesn’t learn Salsa in Cuba, it is like one never has been there.“ Cuba is rhythm, rhythm is dancing. “The Cuban Boxers are dancing, they are boxing with rhythm,“ tells us Pedro. He works at a boxing club for children aged 9-21 in Havana Vieja. Back to Ruben and his painting. It shows us the love present throughout the city.

“The sun and the earth are loving each other,” one knows in the afrocuban culture. A Santera (priest) tells us about Changó, Ochún, Obá and Yemayá, Gods of the Yoruba religion, which they practice in Cuba. The film is similar to Ruben’s painting, it is like a collage. It shows us Cuba and its people from many different perspectives. It doesn’t just tell us about dancing, boxing and love; it also explains us the details of Cuba’s daily life, like its system of transportation, the food book and the difference between peso- and dollar stores.

The film is my attempt to find out what happens if I take a Mini video camera, book a flight and travel one month through a country where I do not know anybody. The final product is not technically perfect. But what was more important was the possibilit y to capture the lives of the people that I met - spontaneous, without any preparation, on the spot. And one thing I realized very quickly while working in Cuba, and hope that everyone who watches the movie realizes too, was this: if Cuba did not exist, we would have to invent it.