Cuba: black and white

Documentary,1992
by Giovanna Ribes

AWARDS:

  • FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL DE CINE DE MUJERES DE MADRID (1994)/ finalist
  • FESTIVAL DE BADALONA (1997)/ Best documentary
  • FESTIVAL SEKAYA SIROCO (1997)/ Best documentary
  • PREMIOS TIRANT (1999)/ Best documentary
  • TOUR-ISMES (Fundación Tàpies)

Synopsis

Jinetera used to be the cuban word for girls who dedicated themselves to “befriending” foreign tourists. Nowadays the number of them has increased due to the economical and political situation. Young girls, as young as 12 or 13, married women, look for tourists exchanging their bodies for money, clothes, presents, marriage, food.

Now, after the apparent easing of the ‘Rafters Crisis’, the situation has not changed as the basic necessities to survive, day by day, are still scarce and Jineteras continue existing, trying to find a solution, a way to survive …. as they say “They invent day in day out in order to survive”.

In this documentary, Interviwees (Jineteras and Tourists), through their own experiences, narrate the stories: What it is like to try to survive on $3, a quarter of chicken and five eggs a month or What it is like to feel like a king in a tropical paradise where all your fantasies are fulfilled in exchange for a pair of runners.

TECHNICAL SPECS

  • Title: Cuba: white and black
  • Genre: documentary
  • Nationality: Spanish
  • Language: Spanish
  • Running time: 25min
  • Shooting format: super 8/ Digi beta
  • Delivery format: Digi beta
  • Ratio: 4:3 Colour:
  • Colour/ White and black
  • Sound mix: stereo

CREW

  • Written and directed by Giovanna Ribes
  • Executive producer and sound: Brendan Geraghty
  • DoP: Javier Quintanilla/ Jean-Philippe Polo
  • Production Assistant: Txoano Arnal
  • Camera Assistant: Eliseo Blay
  • Editor: Manolo Calvo
  • Music composer: Raúl Nacher