Cuba - nostalgia and change | DW Documentary

[Music] [Music] yeah Havana a city between two worlds let me bury muscle power gloves no folia Jamie is a leader I'll mystical Barcelona he sent a partner luck telling ya the water look at again I'm ok honey that's left and [Music] Louis if you have you always driven a taxi no no just for a year what kind of mojo do you have a model they say well I just put a new one in the oven allow it away but is it the same make a Chevrolet well no it's a Toyota the animals on it exteriors old and low years while ago everybody in it I have the old motor at home and Oldham you together that's Cuba the last island of socialism at least externally but the motor of Cuban society has long been capitalist [Music] yummy lie a Vanna native and percussionists with the groups in TASIS she's well known beyond Cuba she's performed all over the world [Music] Yami had plenty of chances to stay abroad but she always wanted to stay here especially now that Cuba is opening up to the US a-- moochick pairen-san que podamos character for go on tiempo we have high hopes that we'll be able to grow we were confined to cleaver for too long now we're opening up Ella when to who wanna connect comes to inclusion okay yeah especially young people but they not the only ones I made lots of fear about where we're heading but no one's put any limits on amigo Cuba is located in the Caribbean at the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico with more than 11 million inhabitants it's the largest of the Antilles Islands Cuba is only 170 kilometers away from the United States Havana's Old Town a fabulous if decrepit open-air museum young architects Claudio Castillo and Orlando Inclan are working hard to give their city a future the state has commissioned them to restore Havana but the architects are doing this work after their official work day as a second job saving this 100 year old palace is a private project from their state jobs the architects are in the equivalent of 40 euros a month their private employer on this project pays them many times they don't want to say precisely how much the free market economy is made itself felt everywhere in Cuban society without it the socially conscious architects wouldn't have been able to save one of the most important palaces in the vieja or old town on the top floor is a gourmet restaurant La Guardia it's a place where a young generation can dream about the future Hey Salman bongs and especially as architects we're glad to be able to experience this time of change in Cuba hand over Modesto stay Restless in en toda la nación a the re-establishment of Cuba's relations with the US will always be positive it will create better conditions for our city and for our country and like I'm a hip out the view from the palace terrace and the deacon Rania has been enjoying it for as long as he can remember hoon yes is the restaurant owner and the two architects employer he was born in the south and he grew up in inside he's an IT engineer but he only earns a pittance in his job for the state a mob boss and my father fire one of the best films ever made about Cuba was shot in this building 1993 strawberry and chocolate the film dealt with homosexuality for serious taboo that's us soon indeed to mass now to the man each philosophers left in the early 1990s after the demise of the Soviet Union men with Cuba descending into poverty the government allowed a small number of so-called cuentapropistas people who work for themselves Henriques seized the opportunity and started La Guardia one of Havana's best restaurants in his house Enriquez 35 employees are also officially cuentapropistas they received their wages in foreign currency which tourists spend in the restaurant a meal here costs the equivalent of a month's state wages for architects like Claudia and Orlando it's more profitable to wait on tables with state wages paid in Cuban pesos they can hardly afford to buy anything with foreign currency earned at their side jobs they can buy all sorts of consumer goods from other cuentapropistas the parallel economy is a reality in Cuba Enrique's family's kitchen used to be here in the bar havana vieja looks like a cross between a ruin and a dollhouse the official task of the team of state architects to which cloudy and/or land over long is to rebuild the old part of the city abandon the former spanish colonial city and UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site is a magnet for tourists tourism rose 25% in 2015 alone lots of people want to experience Cuban socialism before it disappears tourism is Cuba's main source of income three million visitors bring more than two billion dollars a year into otherwise empty state coffers hopes for the future alternate with fear but everyone knows that after almost six decades of socialism things are going to change even in Havana's luxury neighborhoods of a doddle the buildings are in terrible shape Yummie line shoots videos were banned in the former homes of Havana's wealthy families artists photographers and film crews gladly pay for a setting like this the owner is Joseon Lanza a widow like all Cubans she is very resourceful a true cuentapropistas the screams of my pension of two hundred and seventy pesos it didn't we thank you Sonia that's 10 u.s. dollars mouths approximately 10 or 11 main strike on fulfills their measure no per module if doctors or electricity alone for the house cost more than that tens of hours without reading to place out I'd be lost I don't have the money to renovate the building and the Tourism Board didn't want me to they said even if I only painted it the tourists wouldn't want to come and take pictures anymore they've been in the men take another boy else's it'll win it's an open secret that many Cuban pensioners don't have enough money to live on those who can move in with relatives and rent their apartments to tourists that brings in seven times the monthly state pension on the single day for decades cuba has had two currencies those who have only Cuban pesos get to stand in line for cheap bread eggs and other basics those who have cooks a form of money based on foreign currency can buy whatever they want on the parallel market that's led to the formation of social classes in a society where everyone was supposed to be equal the I may still lives with their parents the entire life family are musicians and Jamie's grandfather was a famous orchestra conductor Mercedes Yami's mother teaches music at school she boosts our income giving private lessons for yummy Mercedes is an authority on traditional Cuban music which yummy then gives modern arrangements Marisela no sukira me la mera EA Milagro Ha Na Milagro yummies Benson teasers is well respected in Cuba and abroad they combine African music with jazz and rock anthem Billie Ann alone Hankel is a la really done some saving a pop on a similar frequency a sad Cuban music is arguably the country's leading export product music has been a focal point for Cupid society for quite some time it tells the centuries-old story of the island the Spanish who colonized Cuba brought slaves from Africa to the islands they were used in agriculture and to do housework in the colonialist mentioned food only laughs no there was already a feeling of national solidarity in the nineteenth century yeah and it's fused with the Creole music of the slaves Jensen Oksana y la musica pou can I put on a plastic that's fine on the one hand you had African music on the other French Spanish and Italian music French music came with the Haitians who fled to Cuba after the Haitian Revolution there are influences from a number of countries which are all very rich musically by checking see some people mostly got me nonetheless yummy can't live from music alone La Prensa SCARA s Plymouth Laval a noble provide advice to me to start the havona monkey business so can be seen it done in monotone Costner my avatar lo lo que el salario human Jaguar Rita makes so much money that the owner has hired Claudia and Orlando to renovate the 30 small apartments in the building the tenants help out even before the Revolution people fled the countryside to the cities people needed apartments floors were divided and apartments partitioned in what had been palatial buildings nowadays the inhabitants of the tiny partitioned apartments all have electricity water and toilets alone Simba yodel estamos trabajando muy a priori see as well as a job in the restaurant Veronica for instance washes dishes on that but I know what I got but I have a daughter telephone okay I'm doing pretty well no vehicle a vehicle and oh yeah look at the most inclined thank you like I said my life shortages are no good we want our city to flourish but we can't afford to lose the imagination and creativity that arose from those shortages all these years Cubans can teach the world to be creative parcel mm insane Jana Gana mana [Music] the dawn of the digital age has only made Cubans more inventive because of the US trade embargo there are only a couple of sluggish Wi-Fi networks in all of the venom and using them is for most people prohibitively expensive coming to the rescue is anecdotal Pez a year and a half ago he came up with advocate a the package tell your arm it's a hero elio the messenger as he's known comes by with the hard-disk it's full of TV shows and miniseries the most Camilo a mechanical engineer only has to copy them the package is chock-full a total of one terabyte of Danner época del año el paquete a gives people an unbelievable audio-visual power el paquete a has everything broadcast in a week on the international channels all the movies soap operas shows miniseries and documentaries all the news music apps and antivirus programs every sort of data you can imagine in a week are included in el paquete de esta kata is a very clever idea a kind of Cuban world wide web in which foot power mopeds and delivery trucks cover the distances otherwise bridged by fiber optic cables Cuba still doesn't have them because of the US embargo some 100 people work for our bucket that is to say for Elio normally it takes an hour to download a single photograph in Cuba so who downloads a terabyte worth of data for pocket 10 gets it to Lu somewhere to see today juice no simpler Montana mobile movie it's our trade secret who downloads the data it's for our own protection we're freelancers cuentapropistas but the people who download our data have regular jobs with the state knows about my particular eyes cannot control it's better not to create difficulties for zamacona not draw but receive Okayama de ascenso DNA sutra Volvo moon again it's rumored that high-ranking government officials are involved others say that the hard drives are flown in every day from Miami every Sunday Paquita is transported on a number of hard drives from the Cuban capital to all parts of the island the main means of transport are long-distance buses known as grog wats other Mensa halos are located in provincial towns and cities and they have other messengers working for them in local villages together they form a comprehensive IT network covering all of Cuba following advocator is a great way to discover the country from baracoa in the southeast of the island to Santiago de Cuba then into the Sierra Maestra mountains and back to Havana the Audient death the primeval woodlands this is where Explorer Christopher Columbus made landfall in 1492 the Aboriginal people who inhabited Cuba back then loved these snails called poor amita's in contrast of the original Cubans the poly meters are still alive today they're endemic to Cuba but in my family I change color depending on where they live it depends on the climate the soil the plant life and whether they eat fungus or algae la planta coming into it [Music] but these colorful creatures are threatened with extinction novice Anand is a biologist at the alejandro de humboldt national park has dedicated her life to saving the poly meatus she's researched their habitat what temperature suits them best what's their average size but while Norv is painstakingly scours the forest collecting information with the help of UN research money poachers kill the snails and sell their colourful shells for jewelry novice marks the snails shells in four days she'll return to see how far the poly meters have moved white and yellow snails live here the rainforest is almost inaccessible during the rainy season the body meat is live along a broad stretch of coasts with numerous river deltas the National Park encompasses fifty thousand hectares Norva says her work is an adventure as much as a job with help from the auto guard a tropical forest foundation in Frankfurt several biologists work in the National Park it was named after the famous 19th century German scientist and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt the park contains a greater number of animal and plant species than anywhere else in Cuba near the black sand beaches on the southernmost tip of Cuba novice finds red-and-black Paulo meters [Music] your moody Canyon is a popular tourist destination there used to be lots of red pearl images here but the locals have discovered that they can earn good money selling necklaces made of their shells funny those are 13 why cause with tourism came iPhones and other modern things young people want they're no longer moderate in there once as they used to be they're exchanging their Cuban identity for consumerism my greatest wish for the future is that we preserve the peace we have children can play until late at night in the streets I can go home at 2 o'clock in the morning and nothing happens to me her Paquita has arrived in Baracoa nor his hometown boricua is Cuba's oldest city it's definitely caught the IT bug the ideals of the 1959 communist revolution in Cuba are die these shops used to make money selling pirated music today they live solely from advocating norges has copies made of some nature films mainly by National Geographic oh I there's not a single family in barbacoa that doesn't get something from Paquita yeah five pencils 30 cents is what it costs for two hours of entertainment motika Gonzalez the shop owner and an IT specialist by trade is another cuentapropistas this customer is having music shows copied for his sister a Mexican soap opera for his grandmother and a mafia miniseries from Colombia for his grandfather his family lives in a remote village in the mountains of the Audion to the east advocator has penetrated into even the most remote corners of Cuba that's how strong people's thirst for information is from baracoa it's two hours drive by Guagua to the village of Pinta every Monday at Neal macro Springs at Makita here a riverbed is the only route to the house where his grandparents lived local kids have cobbled together a vehicle to get there [Applause] Lamartine ie danya's eighteen year old sister Glen or can't wait and grandmother ILDA doesn't want to miss anything either the mom Melissa alarm some children as my favorite is la banda it's an American show with Ricky Martin out of all Cele Alejandro Sanz only for some time and they cast young people from all over the country including some Cuban exiles a lot of my hardest I acted on the for the violin and on there's a contest and the five best ones get it's all about the new band will be coming out soon and we're all really excited for someone happy Galan and all I'm telling you I'm almost 80 and I'm seeing things I never thought I'd see we head down the sugar cane Road Santiago de Cuba isn't far from here all right images like these could be from the danes of the slave trade this is the soil from which rum and lumber were born dancer Eunice Nikki Kathy Lee Owens is famous in Santiago de Cuba as the town's rum is the whole world over Rome rum from Santiago de Cuba is a product of various mixtures will commence same goes for the music Janice Leakey dances professionally in the casino tropica and privately forever music is played in Santiago that's nearly everywhere in Rome the rum is flowing just like the Santa ghetto it's a seat Santiago de Cuba is the islands second-largest city and its undisputed capital of rum and music [Music] also the Royal opium we don't just bottle alcohol we bottle the Cuban and his culture the International spiced up with some African rhythms tropical socialism was always a joyous version of the political ideology good cheer is part of Cubans character says the ground Senor of rum Jose Pablo Nevada a lyrical malignus the Cuban is cheerful by nature as rum is winning people and when you hear the conga you'll see him hopping around slaves brought the rum go with them to Cuba Casa Cuddy Denis Leakey under dance troupe are authentic originals this is a fertility dance performed for the African guy [Applause] [Music] the man and the woman act out attraction and rejection the dance is called the vicuna it means that if the man catches you you'll get you're pregnant so the woman has to react to the man's every move and protect herself Balian developer in this warehouse which used to belong to the Bacardi family they still mix rum the women are apprentices the men are master rum makers maestro's row narrows retired engineer Jose Pablo Navarro is the master among masters everyone wants to learn the art of rum making from the 73 year old Cuban rum is exported to 140 different countries but not to the US here's where Rhonda Santiago and the famous Havana Club are made the distillery borders on the poor district of Los Alamos many people here work in the distillery and drink his products to be honest Leakey says living here is almost like living in Africa the dancer says she can't exist without music she gets this sort of music a favorite among young people from el paquete interion name I like living in Cuba but I'd like to travel and dance somewhere else for three to six months and then come back there's no country like Cuba despite all the problems Cuba's free you run around everywhere at any hour of the day and nothing will happen to you there's no violence I can I really answer the household of women the mother works as a cleaner in a school giannis Leakey dances every Friday in the casino and earns around 20 euros a month she depends on tips from foreigners after the meal she wants to show us the root of rumba and her dance troupe going on a Halloween episode on the upper floor of the adjacent building there's an altar of the Santa de religion which mixes Catholic and African beliefs young Cubans also prayed to African deities the orishas what are today rituals performed for tourists secret cult on the sugar plantations this is the origin of rumba musicians and dancers perform under the watchful eye of revolutionary Che Guevara with a view of the Sierra Maestra mountains [Music] [Music] the village has its own TV station the manager of TV is also called La Liga para los voladores they follow yo the TV cerana is like a beacon for the inhabitants of San Pablo and many other villages in the Sierra Maestra a quinoa via here was a photo aluminum today we're known all over the world mundo entero decisions documentaries of won prizes at international festivals carlos rodriguez is a scriptwriter Pina he made instant editor and wife of the manager 20 people work for the tiny station mi madre y una moral compass inna my mother is a farmer too readily officio and my father drove the rural bus the clog was a Montaigne eloquence in which episode a lot of people in the mountains know him and that opens a lot of doors for me when I work with farmers what kill Adela Heba this is the state-run TV set Ana's motor pool in San Pablo in the rainy season many mountain villages are inaccessible even to four-wheel-drive vehicles [Music] you know where in cuba is the spirit of the revolution more alive even in the Sierra Maestra mountains it was from here that the guerrillas of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara began the revolution that toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959 we travel for six hours through the coffee plantation with the TV crew led by a campesino a landless farmer our destination is the last village in the mountains the TV crew is making a documentary about the village of Sidra yeah it was planned by Fidel Castro and built by 30 families who had been scattered throughout the mountains the achievements of Cuban socialism are still important to these coffee bean farmers socialism brought education and medical care for their children and a way out of the poverty of their pre-revolutionary lives today they tell Carlos Rodriguez a TV Saran a journalist that they have to sell coffee on the black market because the state prices for it aren't too low donto Varys here helped build this village today he's worried that the young people will all leave as they did in neighboring villages but if you all got fair that I may get us a little company the people lead the villages because transport is really bad and the price of coffee from which these people live was too low in recent years the people of suruga don't want to leave their village they want to stay but under better conditions dellavedova dodgy getting something locally on we will need better connections with the city's internal gearing either you're creating better streets so condiciones de vida que tengan marks a forum board and better buses out of course of Genesis even they don't know hearing it farmer Roberto Harris has to sell 90% of his crops to the state for fixed prices in response to pressure from farmers the state is now paying them better his daughter Lisette his family also lives from coffee growing if you have to no decision you can't say that life is hard here I have two children and at harvest time I have enough money for gays cinema my medal it's just that when it's not harvest time many people are out of work and struggling to make ends meet tiene que invent a la vez see roguia interests Carlos because the villagers live almost independently and a fought back against perceived injustice there is even a public telephone that can be used to call a helicopter in case of an emergency where the village doctors didn't know what to do this schoolteacher is a passionate defender of the revolution she teaches her students revolutionary values as if the uprising had only happened yesterday as if elsewhere in Cuba things were not changing at a breathtaking pace mighty here older people's hearts still skip a beat when they think back to the revolution and have mixed feelings about the country opening up okay so Alana what does that mean diplomatic relations the US aren't going to give back Guantanamo or lift the trade embargo everything will stay the same what el mundo they are going to have a bit of prosperity in the modern world we have to sacrifice social equity Cuba has begun to do this it's very risky but we have no choice but to try Becca no vana were the streams of tourists to the last island of socialism continued to flow and money is becoming more and more important pensioner Josie Alonso is looking forward to a group of visitors from the u.s. Americans are only allowed to travel to Cuba directly from the US if they claim they're going for purposes of study but the Cubans can find a way around it a son of the maximum leader Onix Castro is here Fidel Castro's son is a professor of photography in Nevada his presence turns this clash of tourists into a study group comments and water on how these Americans take possession of Josie's house they love Cuba's ruins in the sense of nostalgia of the whole country emanates in all probability Alex Castro is here not just as the teacher of a photography course but also as a Quantico Fiesta I live in a magical world and everything is a mystery to me run the lyrics of one Cuban song the architects Claudia and Orlando are finishing up a new private gallery the works here show an extraordinarily fresh view of traditional revolutionary symbols the gallery belongs to one of the stars of strawberry and chocolate actor affair perigordian I hear there's a strong sense of the future in the air light of the dialectic that's Marxism everything changes Cuba smells like the future so que estamos en un Carabas un caballo Viejo am

Channel: DW Documentary

Views: 1,352,022

Keywords: Cuba, Fidel Castro, travel, poverty, innovation, technology, Central America, DW, deutsche welle, documentary

Id: zA6TWnquOYo

Length: 42min 26sec (2546 seconds)

Published: Sat May 20 2017

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Worth the watch.