What would you call it? / ¿Como se llama?

A selection of documentaries – mainly shot in 2017-  at Cuba’s renowned Escuela Internacional del Cine y Television (EICTV), under the title What would you call it? /¿Como se llama? The screening and Q&A session will take place on Wednesday 28th February, at 7:30pm. The accompanying exhibition – of photography and collage - opens in the bar area on Tuesday 27th February, 7pm-9:30pm.

The West has constructed a narrative of Cuba as a nation on the cusp of political, social, economic, and cultural change, while simultaneously clinging to the converse and romantic notion of a country marooned in the past. This screening, and exhibition challenges these ideas through a range of differing and subjective perspectives on the complexities of the Cuban experience.

Against the backdrop of this narrative, a group of documentary filmmakers from all over the world descend on Cuba during the summer of 2017. They are met with the brief of telling a story of Cuban reality in just one month, making six collaborate group projects and their own personal work.This work, made within the confines of a limited geographical and chronological space, explores the stories of everyday life and the subcultures which make up the fabric of contemporary life in Cuba. It shows us that there is no one true narrative, or reality in Havana. Instead, the viewer is invited to consider Cuba’s complexities and contradictions.

The collaboration of the programme participants with EICTV’s local crew marries visions of the outsider looking in with those of the insider looking out, creating a more profound view of a world which is so often characterised as being one dimensional.

Behind the tensions, which manifest throughout the process, lie the complexity of hastily-built relationships; differences in perceptions and allegiances, and historical, political and social context. Resolution of different points of view result in finished works which comment on the process of representation, on the ephemerality of truth, and the strengths and weaknesses of the documentary form.