Habana Blues

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Habana Blues

Spanish film poster
Directed by Benito Zambrano
Written by Benito Zambrano, Ernesto Chao
Starring Alberto Yoel, Roberto Sanmartín, Yailene Sierra
Release date(s) 2005
Running time 115 min
Country Spain
Language Spanish
IMDb profile

Habana Blues (Havana Blues) is a 2005 Spanish and Cuban film by Benito Zambrano, which tells the story of two young musicians in Cuba. The film revolves around their music and contains criticism of problems in Cuba such as poverty and electricity outages.

The two musicians, Ruy and Tito, (Yoel and Sanmartín) whose music is a mix of traditional Cuban music and more modern music such as rap, get a chance at an international breakthrough through a Spanish record company, but they would have to change their Cuba-themed lyrics to cater to an international audience. Ruy considers this a betrayal of his country and his art, whereas Tito recognizes the financial necessity of it. At the same time, Ruy is dealing with the fact that his children and their mother Caridad (Sierra) are leaving for the United States. Art versus commerce, nationalism versus globalism, and communism versus capitalism are some of the themes of the film.


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