Movie

In the Heat of the Cold Years

2022 · 82 min

A wistful, clear-eyed documentary that moves between faded memories and present-day struggle, asking patience and rewarding it with quiet cultural resonance.

Directed by: Darius Kaufmann, Eytan Jan
Starring: Mirta Ibarra, Enrique Pineda Barnet, Eduardo Manet

Overview: In Havana in the nineteen sixties, there were 140 movie theaters. Only a dozen remain today. For ten years, the cinema industry was a pillar of the Cuban Revolution, but the regime’s hardening and the economic recession precipitated its decline. Fifty years later, only a dozen movie theaters are still running in Havana, while a new generation of bold filmmakers struggles for the very existence of Cuban cinema. In the Heat of the Cold Years tells the story of Revolutionary Cuban cinema through the memories of a choral of elder filmmakers, such as Luciano Castillo, the director of the national film archives, as he scrambles for the preservation of this crumbling cultural legacy, and through a group of young Cuban filmmakers struggling to make their first feature film.
How it feels: Melancholic, earnest and dark. Measured and needs your attention.
About: Art, memory, politics, isolation
Content: Mild language. No violence, gore or sexual content.
Note: Written by AI, so it can be wrong. Full breakdown