Cuba Caravan Film Festival

*CUBA FILM FESTIVAL*



A day-long presentation of films from and about Cuba to benefit the 2012
Pastors for Peace Caravan to Cuba


*1:00 - 10:30 p.m. Saturday June 2nd, 2012 - Resource Center for
Nonviolence - 612 Ocean Street, Santa Cruz*


Each summer since 1992 the organization Pastors for Peace has sponsored a Caravan to Cuba to protest the 50-year U.S. blockade of travel and commerce with that country. On a dozen routes through the U.S. from Canada to Mexico, a hundred caravanistas accompany material aid gathered to benefit the Cuban people, ensure its passage into Mexico, load it onto a freighter in Tampico, and then spend nine days in Cuba learning about that island's post-revolutionary victories and struggles.


The Cuba Film Festival on Saturday June 2nd will raise funds for caravanista scholarships and for caravan expenses from Santa Cruz.


*Donations are requested for entrance. and for snacks, finger-food and drinks, which will be available during the day.*


*Film Schedule - **Main Auditorium*

1:00 - Strawberry and Chocolate

3:00 - The Waiting List

5:00 - Fidel

6:30 - 7:30 - Free time/snacks in lobby, Presentation of music and dance

7:30 - Salud!

9:10 - Maestra

9:45 - Discussion of Maestra, with director Catherine Murphy and Cuban
literacy teacher (Maestra) participant Norma Guillard



*Meeting Room*

1:00 - With our Memory on the Future

2:10 - Bloqueo

3:00 - The Trial

4:20 –Who’s Afraid of a Little Yellow Schoolbus

5:00 - Power of Community

6:00 - Free to Fly



*Evening Program*

**

*Salud!* - (Connie Field; 2006;93 mins) - Find out what makes Cuba a ‘world
health power’. Salud! looks at a cash-strapped country withwhat the BBC
calls ‘one of the world’s best health systems.’ From Africa to the
Americas, meet some of the28,000 Cuban health professionals serving in 68
countries, and explore thehearts and minds of 30,000 international medical
students studying for free inCuba - including over 150 from the USA….a MUST
SEE for anybody wanting a betterhealth care system in the US.

*Maestra* - (CatherineMurphy; 2010; 30 mins) - Cuba, 1961: 250,000
volunteers taught 700,000 peopleto read and write in one year. 100,000 of
the teachers were under 18. Over half were women. MAESTRA presents the
personal testimonies of the young women whowent out to teach literacy in
rural communities across the island - and foundthemselves deeply
transformed in the process.

*Come meet the director Catherine Murphy and one of those 250,000 volunteer
teachers - Norma Guillard*

*Film Descriptions*

*Daytime Program*

**

*Strawberry and Chocolate* – (Cuban; Tomas Gutierrez Alea & Juan Carlos
Tabio; Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Film, 1994; 110 mins) - Sympathetic
fictional story of the unlikely friendship between two Cuban men, one a
gay, non-political artist and the other a straight Communist… A movie that
played a transcendental role in opening a debate about homophobia in Cuba.

*The Waiting List* - (Cuban; Juan Carlos Tabio; 2000; 100 mins) - Fictional
tale of people, waiting for a bus that never comes, who transform the bus
station from a place they cannot leave to one which they do not want to
leave. A highly humorous slice of life in modern Cuba.

*Fidel* – (Cuban; Estela Bravo; 2001; 91 mins) - By far the best Biopic of
Castro, featuring interviews with Fidel and with historians, public figures
and friends, including Arthur Schlesinger, Ramsey Clark, Alice Walker,
Harry Belafonte, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, with historic Cuban archival
footage…. Hear how Fidel almost accidentally shot Soviet premier Kruschev.

*With Our Memory on the Future* – (Cuban Federation of Women; 2006; 63
mins) – A heart-warming, dynamic documentary on the leadership role of
Cuban women since the 1959 revolution. Interviews with women (and men) of
all ages across that country, focusing on their work in the professions, in
traditional male jobs, and on the culture of machismo.

*Bloqueo* - (Rachel Dannefer & Heather Haddon; 2004; 48 mins) - Filmed
during the 2001 Pastors for Peace Caravan to Cuba, caravanistas and Cubans
explain how the US blockade works, its impact on Cubans every-day lives,
and the achievements of their society despite the blockade…..11 years later
it’s still all too true.

*The Trial.* *The Untold Story of the Cuban Five - *(Cuban; Rolando
Almirante; 2007; 70 mins) - Documentary about 5 patriotic Cubans, in jail
in the US since 1998, on trumped-up charges of conspiracy to commit
espionage, interviews with defense and prosecuting attorneys. A dynamic
portrayal that demonstrates the enormous injustice meted out to the Cuban
Five. Narrated by Danny Glover.

*Who's Afraid of a Little Yellow Schoolbus?* - (Pastors for Peace; 1993; 30
mins) - During the 2nd Cuba Caravan in 1993, US Treasury officials seized a
yellow schoolbus at the Texas border. The 13 passengers decided to stay on
board and fast until it was released to go to Cuba, while a campaign of
pressure was mounted on Washington. 23 days later…they won! An inspiring
movie.

*The Power of Community - How Cuba Survived Peak Oil* - (Faith Morgan;
2006; 53 mins) - Losing access to Soviet oil in 1991, Cuba faced an
immediate crisis – feeding the population – and an ongoing challenge to
create a new low-energy society. Here is the story of the Cuban people's
hardship, ingenuity, and triumph over sudden adversity – through
cooperation, conservation, and community. An example as we face our own
Peak Oil.

*Free to Fly* – (Cuban; Estela Bravo; 2004; 33 mins) - To anywhere in the
world, except Cuba. A documentary history of the more than four decades of
travel restrictions between the U.S. and Cuba, with arguments for the
advantages of free interchange.