Habana Blues

2005 Spanish film

2005 (2005)

Running time

115 minutesCountriesSpain
CubaLanguageSpanish

Havana Blues (Habana Blues) is a 2005 Spanish and Cuban film directed and co-written by Benito Zambrano which tells the story of two young musicians in Cuba. The film revolves around their music and contains criticism of problems in Cuba such as poverty and electricity outages. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.^[3]

The two musicians, Ruy and Tito (Yoel and San Martín), whose music is a mix of traditional Cuban music and more modern music such as rap, get a chance at an international breakthrough through a Spanish record company, but they would have to change their Cuba-themed lyrics to cater to an international audience. Ruy considers this a betrayal of his country and his art, whereas Tito recognizes the financial necessity of it. At the same time, Ruy is dealing with the fact that his children and their mother Caridad (Sierra) are leaving for the United States. Art versus commerce, nationalism versus globalism, and communism versus capitalism are some of the themes of the film.

Cast

Alberto Yoel - Ruy (as Alberto Yoel García)
Roberto San Martín - Tito
Yailene Sierra - Caridad
Mayra Rodríguez - Lucía
Ernesto Escalona - Carlitos
Marta Calvó - Marta
Roger Pera - Lorenzo
Osvaldo Doimeadiós - Ruber
Zenia Marabal - Luz María
Laris Vega - Betty
Jorge Alí - Nelson (as Jorge Ali Pérez)
Félix Pérez - René
Aurora Basnuevo - Estrellita
Tomás Cao - Álex (as Tomás A. Cao)
Giordano Serrano - Giordano

References

^ "Cuban film producer Camilo Vives dies". The Times of India. 2013-03-14. Archived from the original on 2013-05-18. Retrieved 2013-04-09.
^ "Film #24319: Habana Blues". Lumiere. Retrieved 13 November 2021.
^ "Festival de Cannes: Habana Blues". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-12-08.