A Passion for Cuban Films

The first time I went to a movie theatre in Cuba was a self-imposed homework assignment. I was studying Spanish at the University of Havana's excellent school for foreigners and working as a freelance reporter for the Canadian Press. My Spanish was getting better day by day, but every bit of practice helped, especially with the Cuban tendency to speak as quickly as their feet move on the dance-floor. No better way to tune my ear, I told myself, than going to a Cuban film and having to figure out what was going on.

The Ciné Yara was a familiar sight from my daily walk to the University through Vedado's neighbourhood streets. This movie theatre from the 1950s looms up from the corner of La Rampa and Calle L, just across the street from the hotel where Fidel Castro held court as a young revolutionary.

Lucky for me, a Cuban film was playing the day I decided to visit the Yara for the first time. It could easily have been a Hollywood blockbuster