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Fresh looks at Cuba in the Los Angeles Film Festival

A quartet of films depict a country in the midst of political and cultural soul-searching.

June 23, 2011|By Reed Johnson, Los Angeles Times

Leapfrogging between past and present, while deftly mixing contemporary and archival footage, "Unfinished Spaces" tells the remarkable story of how in the early 1960s Castro enlisted three visionary architects to construct a Cuban National Art Schools complex.

But before the project could be completed, Cuba's revolution became Sovietized and militarized, leading Che Guevara and others to denounce the new school's sensuous architecture and its pleasure-seeking student life as decadent and counter-revolutionary. Many additional plot turns ensue as the film examines 40-plus years of Cuban history through its singular prism.

Nahmias and Murray, who are both 32 and met as classmates at New York University, said they wanted their film to go beyond stereotypes of Cuba that either "romanticize" or "vilify" its government.

"That was what drew me in, knowing there had to be something more," Nahmias said. "The first couple of trips, I fell in love with Cuba. The more I've gone there, I think I've seen a lot of harsh realities. But I'm still in love with it."

reed.johnson@latimes.com

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