FIU and University of Miami present documentary on 1970s-80s generation in Cuba

WHAT:Florida International University’s Cuban Research Institute and the University of Miami’s Latin American Studies Program and Center for Latin American Studies will present a screening of the documentary “El Telón de Azucar” (“The Sugar Curtain”).

“El Telón de Azúcar” is a documentary that hauntingly captures present-day Cuba through the eyes of those that were born and bred within it. It is an intimate portrait of a generation that began their studies in primary school when the Cuban regime was in its best economic moment (in the mid-1970s and1980s) and still maintained the energy of the early days. The film recounts this generation’s childhood and explores what happened when the socialist regimes of Eastern Europe ceased to exist. With clear and sensitive language, the film is a deeply-rooted in collective autobiography, from the intimacy of everyday life of this generation of Cubans.

The screening will be followed by a round table discussion on “Youth in Cuba – the 80s and Now” with Camila Guzmán Urzúa, the film’s director, writer, co-producer and director of photography; Katrin Hansing, associate director of FIU’s Cuban Research Institute; and Lillian Manzor, associate professor of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Miami and director of the Latin American Studies Degree Programs and The Cuban Theater Digital Archive.

WHO: Camila Guzmán Urzúa was born in Santiago, Chile in 1971. Her family moved to Cuba in 1973 where she lived until 1990. Since then she has lived in Spain, England, Chile, France, and is currently based in Argentina. She studied film and video in London at the LCPDT (London College of Printing and Distributive Trades) and in Paris at Les Ateliers Varan. Since 1996 she has worked as assistant director and producer in a number of documentaries and fiction films such as Amalia Escriva’s “Pablo Neruda”, Carmen Castillo’s “María Felix, la doña”, Patricio Guzmán’s “The Pinochet Case”, and Ricardo Larraín’s “El entusiasmo”. In 2002 she directed and wrote the documentary “La voie de Thomas” with Les Ateliers Varan, Paris. “El Telón de Azúcar” is her first full-length feature film. It has been selected to participate in many international film festivals and has won several prestigious prizes, among them the First Prize for Documentary at the New Latin American Film Festival, Havana 2007, and the Prize Louis Marcorelles at the Festival du Cinéma du Réel, Paris 2007.

WHEN: Saturday, Jan. 31, 2009 at 5 p.m.

WHERE: Bill Cosford Cinema at the University of Miami, 1380 Miller Drive, Coral Gables. The event is free and open to the public. For directions please visit http://com.miami.edu/cosford/directions.php

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Call Katrin Hansing at 305-348-9424 or 786-390-6020; or Lillian Manzor at 305-284-2017. For more information on the event, please visit http://com.miami.edu/cosford/

-FIU-

Media contact: Madeline Baró at 305-348-2234.

About FIU:
Florida International University was founded in 1965 and is Miami’s only public research university. With a student body of more than 38,000, FIU graduates more Hispanics than any other university in the country. Its 17 colleges and schools offer more than 200 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs in fields such as engineering, international relations and law. FIU has been classified by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as a “High Research Activity University.” In 2006 FIU was authorized to establish a medical school, which will welcome its first class in 2009. FIU’s College of Law recently received accreditation in the fastest time allowed by the American Bar Association.