Baracoa, Where Cuba Began

INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE. Baracoa, the oldest of Cuban cities, has just turned 500 years old. Trapped between the majestic Caribbean Sea and two prodigious rivers, this almost virginal paradise is an island within an island. It seems as if Fidel and Raúl Castro were unnecessary in the lives of Baracoa's residents, bent on forgetting the vicissitudes that has left in its trail, in the greater island, the cataclysm of the Revolution.Baracoa's residents, as patient as they are passionate, as optimistic as they are resigned, are the subject of the notorious Spanish reporter Mauricio Vicente's debut as a film director. Just before the world premiere of Baracoa…, Cuban authorities suspended Vicente's accreditation as a foreign correspondent in the island, a job he had been doing for twenty years. “The happiest person is not the one who has the most, but the one who loves most whatever he has.” This statement from one of the movie's characters resumes in a nutshell the documentary's premise. Some will consider a message that shows complacency with the Cuban regime. Others, however, will discover, in the rebelliousness implicit in any expression of resignation, the marvelous clay that shall shape the future. - Orlando Rojas