Rolando Díaz has finished in Valencia the Spanish production “Adios, Cuba”, about the people “who will not stop leaving”.
The veteran and renowned Cuban filmmaker Rolando Díaz, in Spain since the 1990s, just finished shooting his new movie, “Adios, Cuba,” in Valencia, Spain. It’s a drama inspired by the real experiences of the Cuban diaspora in Spain and other countries. Yuliet Cruz, Frank Moreno, Betiza Bismarck, and Grisell Monzón lead a cast very familiar with the subject, as all four have also left the island and reside in the United States and Spain.
This entire production follows Caridad (Yuliet Cruz), a Cuban theater director based in Valencia, Spain, who is determined to stage a play about the exodus of Cubans from the island. To do this, she sets out to interview men and women who have left under the most unlikely circumstances, all at great risk to their lives. With these testimonies, she aims to develop a dramatic plot that evokes emotions ranging from sadness to laughter, because even in the worst moments, there is room for laughter.
To carry out this endeavor, Caridad relies on her close friends Lázaro (Frank Moreno), Regla (Betiza Bismarck), and Fátima (Grisell Monzón), all residents of the same Mediterranean city, who will help her find cases of spectacular escapes and set up an unusual stage in the middle of an industrial warehouse. Through music, words, dance, and scenography (precarious but tremendously imaginative), they express with force Caridad’s profound perspective on uprooting, nostalgia, loss, and happiness.
The author of “Tables Turned”, “Melodrama,” and “If You Only Understood” felt the need to write first, these very real stories, which affect tens of thousands of Cubans annually, after hearing some words from his compatriot Leonardo Padura. “I heard him say that in the last two years, more than 600,000 Cubans have left the country. Even with all the restrictions there are now, more than 700 Cubans are entering the United States every day. These are staggering numbers,” explains Díaz.
For the filmmaker, “Adios, Cuba” is about “saying goodbye, sometimes in very painful ways. My return to the Cuban theme comes from that tearing apart. It’s more like the question of ‘what’s happening? What will happen at the end of all this?’ because people just keep leaving, and I realize that many of these young people I talk to don’t even have a political opposition stance, they just can’t be there, they can’t live there.”
“Adios, Cuba,” emphasizes Rolando Díaz, is not a political film in the sense of a propagandistic theme, but of human portraits. “There is a range of grays that I hope will be in the movie. It goes from an author, a Cuban theater director, who insists on making theater. She has been in Valencia for 10 years and prefers to be a ‘mileurista’ (someone who earns a thousand euros a month) and lives dreaming of teaching theater to be able to create her work. “It is that apprehension, which is a recurring theme in the history of culture, and I wouldn’t even say just in the history of cinema, of an artist who, against all odds, tries to do what she needs and desires to do.”
This same desire is behind the film project, which is a production by Rolando Díaz himself with Gerardo Carrera (Muak Canarias, Spain), in association with Pase a Tierra Productions in the United States and the collaboration of Malahierva, LLC also in Spain.
“Adios, Cuba” was filmed in Valencia, Spain after a preface shot in Miami and Tampa in Florida, United States, as well as in Havana, Cuba. It aims to be completed by the end of this year with the goal of premiering at international festivals in 2025.
About the cast:
- Yuliet Cruz, a Cuban actress of theater, film, and television, known for her roles in films such as “Conducta” (2014) by Ernesto Daranas, or “Esteban” (2016) by Jonal Cosculluela, stars in the feature film. Díaz has stated that he chose Cruz for the role due to her solidity and strength of interpretation, two essential characteristics for a character like Caridad.
- Frank Moreno returns to the screen as Lázaro after a long time engaged in other activities. Moreno has worked in theater under the direction of Raquel Revuelta, Carlos Díaz, or Nelson Dorr, as well as in various popular Cuban television shows.
- Betiza Bismarck, a young Cuban actress – now residing in Spain – with a background under the direction of Fernando Pérez in “Insumisas” or “Inocencia,” by Alejandro Gil, and in Spanish films such as “Yuli,” by Iciar Bollaín, or “Once Upon a Time in Euskadi,” by Frank Ariza. She also participated in the TV series “Cuéntame” and the theatrical production “La Celestina,” premiered in Madrid.
- Grisell Monzón has had a long journey in Cuban television. She worked with Fernando Pérez on “Últimos días en La Habana” and with Alan González in the recent film “La mujer salvaje,” directed by Alán González, which won the Cuban Critics’ Award in 2023.
Rolando Díaz, a master of Cuban cinema.
Director of iconic Cuban films from the 1980s, Rolando Díaz (Havana, 1947), filmed in Cuba such well-known movies as “Tables turned”, “Melodrama,” and “Three and Two”. He left the island in the early 1990s and since then has filmed “Closeness”, in the United States, ” The Lost Children of Jarabacoa” in the Dominican Republic, “If You Only Understood”, and “An Elephant on a Spider’s Web” in Spain (2022). His filmography has received numerous international awards and has been featured in important film festivals such as the Berlinale, Toronto, Amsterdam, London, Seattle, Miami, and New York. “If You Only Understood” premiered commercially in 2000 at the Lincoln Center, as well as at the Walter Reade Theater in New York. It was selected by the Toronto International Film Festival and by the Los Angeles Latino Film Festival. It also won the LASA (Latin American Studies Association) Award at the New York Latino Film Festival. “The Lost Children of Jarabacoa” won the Second Audience Award at the 2020 Miami International Film Festival where only three Audience Awards were given among participating films. At the same festival, this film was selected as a finalist for the North American HBO network award, and it was later selected for the New York Latino Film Festival. Most recently, at the 2022 Seattle Film Festival, “An Elephant on a Spider Web” was one of only four Spanish language films selected for this prestigious event.
