Cubans at the Edge of the Berlin Wall
Land(e)scape of Opportunity
Director: Ricardo Bacallao | 45 min. | Producers: Ricardo Bacallao, Francesca Dziadek | Camera: Katja Altmann, Ricardo Bacallao, Jennifer Maria Matthiessen | Still Photography: Ricardo Moreno | Associate Producer: Lucio Fernández (a film work in progress)
When the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, Teresa Casanueva and Ricardo Moreno, young Cuban students holding GDR student and work permits, find themselves catapulted by the winds of change and confronted with a brave new world of freedom, choice and opportunity.
They decide to stay in Berlin and Test the West.
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Amir Valle, a well-known Cuban writer whose controversial analysis of prostitution in Cuba was censored by the authorities, was suddenly expelled during a trip to Spain. He found a haven in Germany but was never allowed back to his native Havana. Teresa, Ricardo and Amir's decision to remain in Germany had consequences which still haunt and affect them. |
A popular Cuban musician today, he taught himself to play the guitar whiling away intermibable hours in refugee limbo in Mecklenburg Vorpommern.
What does it mean to live your life knowing you will probably never see your family again?
What did the three Cuban exiles gain by becoming Berliners?
Can they cope with letting go with what is lost forever?
Ricardo Bacallao's sensitive portrayal of a Cuban diaspora by the Berlin Wall reveals that although there may be no peace without the pieces, the future lies ahead, in Teresa, Amir's and Ricardo's emotional land(e)scape of opportunity.
Kuration: Ricardo Bacallao
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