‘TropiCola’ is the Cuban alternative for Coca Cola. One of the questions posed in TropiCola is whether this Cuban brand has a right to exist alongside Coke. In other words: can the Cubans survive in the dollar economy? TropiCola is a video essay about two families in Havanna who try to survive the economical and political restructuring of their country. In both families, one white and the other Afro-Cuban, the elderly lived through the revolution, while the younger generation is less tied to the old ideals. Everyone tries to reshape his own future in the new society. This continuously involves the battle between patriotism and the desire to escape the economic malaise and seek a life elsewhere.Fagin mixes a light-hearted cocktail of different styles and narrative structures with music and song. The film is a mixture of documentary and telenovela (soap) that interweaves in a humorous and playful way these family portraits into a sharp and colourful emblem of life in post-colonial Cuba. Fagin is interested in this transition period because it is a chaotic time in which old certainties have disappeared without new ones emerging to take their place. No one knows which way society is going, so this situation demands great inventiveness and creativity. TropiCola shows that the Cubans have plenty of that.
