Before Night Falls

This exuberant film by the experienced artist and still novice film-maker Julian Schnabel shows a side of the port of Havana that has not previously been filmed so powerfully. It would anyway have been impossible for a Cuban film-maker, because of political circumstances, to make a film like this (because let it be clear from the start that Schnabel also holds a political plea against the repression of – gay – artists under Castro), but few film-makers have the visual power and the carefree approach to the medium film that makes this second feature by Schnabel so powerful and special.The city that Schnabel portrays here is the city of the gay writer Reinaldo Arenas (beautifully acted by Javier Bardem). His life story provides the narrative line through the colourful, forbidden and hidden life of artistic gays and transvestites in Havana. Arenas’ life story is also a story about exile: enforced emigration because the fatherland he loves in spite of everything (the land of the language of the writer) does not allow his way of life. Arenas grew up in the spirit of the revolution and won prizes for his first publications, but in 1973 he was arrested and his work was banned. In 1980 he left the country with many other homosexuals.Elsewhere in this programme, Havana as a port is the location where the Austrian documentary-makers Gabriele Hochleitner and Michael Pilz shot their Waterfront Video Diary. (GjZ)