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As Cuba experiences a historic wave of emigration, its transnational and independent cinema has gained worldwide recognition despite a lack of institutional support. Many contemporary filmmakers are navigating the same fate as pioneer Nicolás Guillén Landrián (1938–2003), whose marginalization and exile echo ongoing state censorship of dissident voices.
Amidst the failure of utopias, this new wave of creators defies totalitarianism, archival omissions, and the lack of exhibition networks within the island by building communities elsewhere. The creation of the INSTAR Film Festival in 2019 by renowned artist Tania Bruguera was a pivotal moment, providing a crucial platform dedicated to supporting independent film production, particularly in countries where freedom of expression is under threat.
This series celebrates INSTAR’s invaluable curatorial practice by including many titles screened at the festival, and it also honors Landrián’s legacy with West Coast premieres of his recently restored documentaries. These films provide a glimpse into what scholar Ana López described in the early 1990s as the cinema of “Greater Cuba”—a body of work entwined with efforts to reconstruct national history and identity within and outside exile. Alongside the recurring theme of exile, motherhood frequently emerges in many of these films. The maternal figure symbolizes nationhood and world-making potential in a context in which political and social upheavals disrupt everyday life.
Cuban Cinema without Borders reflects on Cuban lives and imaginaries inside and outside the country’s insular boundaries by presenting a heterogeneous array of fiction, documentary, and experimental films. These pieces, charged with undeniable artivism, expand the horizons of the Greater Cuba cinematographic corpus.
—Lázaro González, Guest Curator