Guantanamera

• Directors: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea; Juan Carlos Tabió
• AMG Rating:
• Genre: Adventure
• Movie Type: Satire, Road Movie
• Themes: Obsessive Quests
• Main Cast: Conchita Brando, Carlos Cruz, Raul Eguren, Pedro Fernandez, Jorge Perugorría
• Release Year: 1995
• Country: DE/ES/CU
• Run Time: 102 minutes
• MPAA Rating: NR

Plot

In this satiric road movie from Cuba, Yoyita (Conchita Brando), a well-known singer living in Havana, travels with her niece Georgina (Mirta Ibarra), a college professor, to the village of her birth, where Yoyita is reunited with Candido (Raul Eguren), whom she loved as a young woman. When Yoyita and Candido meet for the first time in 50 years, they're thrilled to discover that the flame of passion still burns within them; unfortunately, Yoyita is so thrilled that it gives her a heart attack, and she dies on the spot. Yoyita's body must be transported back to Havana for burial, but while logic would dictate that Georgina should simply hire a hearse to make the journey, her husband, Adolfo (Carlos Cruz), a bureaucrat with more enthusiasm than common sense, has another idea -- by transferring the body from one vehicle to another at the border of each province, the cost of fuel will be distributed more evenly along the route. No one much cares for this idea except Adolfo, but he has the law on his side, so Georgina, Candido, and Adolfo begin a long, slow journey back to Havana accompanied by truck drivers Ramon (Pedro Fernandez) and Mariano (Jorge Perugorria), who was Georgina's student years ago. At every stop, the group meets a few of the people in each town (especially Mariano, who seems to have a girlfriend in every village in Cuba) and they share their thoughts on faith, politics, and love. Guantanamera was the final work from veteran Cuban director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea; he died before the film could be completed, so co-screenwriter Juan Carlos Tabió finished the film in his stead. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Cast

Pedro Fernandez - Ramon; Carlos Cruz - Adolfo; Luis Alberto Garcia - Tony; Mirta Ibarra - Georgina; Jorge Perugorría - Mariano; Conchita Brando - Aunt Yoyita; Raul Eguren - Candido; Suset Perez Malberti - Iku

Credit

Walter Achugar - Associate Producer, Enrique Gonzalez Macho - Associate Producer, Aurelio Nunez - Associate Producer, Alina Pombo - Casting, Lourdes Prieto - First Assistant Director, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea - Director, Juan Carlos Tabió - Director, Carmen Frías - Editor, Ulrich Felsberg - Executive Producer, Camilo Vives - Executive Producer, José Nieto - Composer (Music Score), Onelio Larralde - Production Designer, Hans Burmann - Cinematographer, Gerardo Herrero - Producer, Raul Garcia - Sound/Sound Designer, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea - Screenwriter, Eliseo Alberto Diego - Screenwriter, Juan Carlos Tabió - Screenwriter

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