Habana Blues

Six years after his feature debut, the penetrating and unsentimental drama Solas (screened at the festival in Rotterdam in 2000), Benito Zambrano has completed his second feature. For this he returned to Cuba, the country where he attended film school. For the cheerful Habana Blues, he drew on the many pleasant memories he still has of that time. He did not want to be the umpteenth foreigner to say what is wrong with Cuba, but to be the narrator of a story that is taken from Cuban life, even if it is a story with universal value. Habana Blues is a lively portrait of two Cuban musicians who want to make it, so they will eventually be able to see something of the world. For a change, these are not aged men who play the Cuban son, but young guys who most like to play rock and blues. Ruy lives with Caridad and their two children. Tito lives with his grandma, a pithy, cigar-smoking lady. While they are practising for their first major concert, they get to know Marta and Lorenzo, two Spanish producers. They are in Cuba looking for new talent. Ruy and Tito smell an opportunity, but fame has its price. Alongside this bittersweet story the soundtrack plays an important role in Habana Blues. It shows that some very different music is made on Cuba; from hip hop to blues, and all of it just as passionate. (SdH)