Filmmaker Brin-Jonathan Butler and his team are looking to raise $15K to support their film on the life and struggles of Cuban boxer Guillermo Rigondeaux. You can be a part of their success by helping them fund through Indiegogo. Check out the trailer and info below….
The boxer’s struggle in Cuba is the Cuban struggle. All Cubans struggle from birth and they see the boxer’s struggle as a metaphor for their own.
Fidel Castro banned professional sports in Cuba in 1962. His decree created a difficult choice for boxers—stay in Cuba and fight for national glory or defect to a country where their talents could make them rich. In the 70s Teofilo Stevenson won three Olympic gold medals and turned down five million dollars to defect from Cuba and fight Muhammad Ali, asking those promoters who made the offer, “What’s a million dollars compared to the love of eight million Cubans?”. In the 90s Felix Savon won another three Olympic gold medals and turned down tens of millions to travel to the US to fight Mike Tyson. What Fidel Castro was trying to use his boxers to prove was not just that his boxers were defeating Americans in the ring, but that Cuba and her system were defeating America itself, most noticeably in their sacrifice of financial reward for service to their country.
We meet Rigondeaux as a national hero, 243 fights with only four losses, two Olympic gold medals, captain of the Cuban team, numerous world championships and national championships. Rigondeaux is well on his way to becoming the greatest amateur fighter the world has ever seen. The Cuban state has looked after Rigondeaux following his victories, providing him and his family with a car and Havana home. At this point Rigondeaux feels his sacrifice deserves a greater reward.
In the summer of 2007, Guillermo Rigondeaux fails to show up for his scheduled bout at the Pan Am Games in Brazil. It’s announced that Rigondeaux is turning professional and joining his fellow Cuban Olympians Yan Barthelemy, Yuriorkis Gamboa and Odlandier Solis, who’d defected earlier in 2006. Following the lead of the previous Cuban defectors, Rigondeaux signs a promotional deal with Arena Box-Promotion. Then, on August 2nd 2007,Rigondeaux is taken into police custody in Brazil, pleading that he wants to return home to Cuba.
Upon his return, Fidel Castro states publicly Rigondeaux is a traitor to Cuba and the Cuban people and he will not box again for the Cuban team. His car is seized, his home under constant watch, all former teammates, coaches and friends are forbidden from contact with him. Teofilo Stevenson, Cuba’s most decorated champion speaks out against this publicly and defends Rigondeaux, pleading for his reinstatement to no avail. He’s banned from competing for a 3rd gold medal in Beijing. Rigondeaux, set adrift in the prime of his career, is held hostage by the state and banned from any possible return to boxing.
Secretly Rigondeaux engages in negotiations with foreign parties to arrange for his escape from Cuba and into the world of professional boxing at the cost of losing his wife and child and everything he’s ever known with little or no prospect of ever being able to return.
February 2009, Rigondeaux risks his life to defect with smugglers via Mexico City, into the waiting arms of Miami exiled-Cuban promoters. A legal battle between his Irish manager Gary Hyde and the Miami promoters begins for control of Rigondeaux’s career before it even has a chance to begin. Rigondeaux’s career stalls as the power struggle over his career persists. He is nearly 30 when the issues are resolved and he finally signs a contract with Bob Arum, the largest boxing promoter in the world.
Rigondeaux discovers that the biggest obstacle to his career’s success lies in the fact that the 95% non-black exiled-Cuban community in Florida offer no support of black Cuban fighters. As Bob Arum points out, “Cuban Olympic champions can’t sell out the front row of a dancehall in Miami.”
Shortly after signing his contract in April of 2010, Rigondeaux is nearly knocked out while sparring in Los Angeles with a very limited youthful amateur. He promptly severs ties with his trainer, Freddie Roach, and returns to Miami. From his corner, Roach chillingly points out, “Someone was exposed here today.” At the most important moment of his life, Rigondeaux stands on the brink of either a championship or total professional and personal collapse. After 6 successful fights, Bob Arum steps forward to offer a contract to Gary Hyde, dangling a title shot. If he wins, the American dream could still come true for Rigondeaux. If he loses, he could become just another defector from Cuba who’s lost everything in search of that dream. Like nearly all the defected Cuban fighters who came before him, the biggest opponent Rigondeaux faces is coping with American life. Every time he steps into battle in an American ring, Rigondeaux wears the flag of the nation he has left behind on his trunks. Just what Cuba he is fighting for remains a mystery.
This Friday, some of the best talent from Havana convenes in Brooklyn for a great cause.
Check out the details on Red Hot + Cuba below…
Music Direction by Andres Levin and CuCu Diamantes
Produced by BAM
Co-produced with Paul Heck/The Red Hot Organization in recognition of World AIDS Day (Dec 1) & Andres Levin/Music Has No Enemies
Nine acts representing the vibrant Havana music scene take the stage for a tribute to the sounds of contemporary Cuba. Saunter from the malecón at dawn to smoky clubs at dusk with an all-star lineup of emerging artists and established legends—including Alexander Abreu (of Havana D’Primera), José Luis Cortés (“El Tosco” of NG La Banda), Carlos Varela, CuCu Diamantes, and David Torrens—in this showcase of timba, salsa, nueva trova, and more.
This program is produced by BAM in association with Red Hot Organization in recognition of World AIDS Day on December 1. Part of the proceeds will benefit AIDS prevention and awareness in Cuba.
Featured performers:
Alexander Abreu
José Luis Cortés (“El Tosco”)
CuCu Diamantes
Andres Levín
Kelvis Ochoa
Osdalgia
David Torrens
Roberto Carlos “Cucurucho” Rodriguez Valdés
Carlos Varela
Chico & Rita, an animated film from director Fernando Trueba & artist Javier Mariscal that tells the story of two aspiring in 1940s Cuba, is now availble to watch on Netflix.
The Spanish-language feature is a celebration of Cuban music that features pianist Bebo Valdés (father of Chucho Valdés) and other jazz greats in an epic story of romance, ambition and glamour.
Check out the trailer below…
Cuba, 1948. Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them, but their journey – in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero – brings heartache and torment. From Havana to New York, Paris, Hollywood and Las Vegas, two passionate individuals battle impossible odds to unite in music and love.
Screening tonight at Indiana University is the Cuban documentary Maetra, as part of the BFC/A-sponsored CUBAmistad Series (which celebrates Cuban art and film).
Check out the film’s trailer below…
Cuba, 1961: 250,000 volunteers taught 700,000 people to read and write in one year. 100,000 of the teachers were under 18 years old. Over half were women. Maestra explores this story through the personal testimonies of the young women who went out to teach literacy in rural communities across the island – and found themselves deeply transformed in the process.
Interesting article from yesterday’s NY Times on the AIDS Epidemic in Cuba. It actually covers various themes such as foreign aid, prostitution, education and, of course, healthcare in describing the success the island nation has had controlling the virus.
Check out an excerpt from the story below…
…Cuba now has one of the world’s smallest epidemics, a mere 14,038 cases. Its infection rate is 0.1 percent, on par with Finland, Singapore and Kazakhstan. That is one-sixth the rate of the United States, one-twentieth of nearby Haiti.
The population of Cuba is only slightly larger than that of New York City. In the three decades of the global AIDS epidemic, 78,763 New Yorkers have died of AIDS. Only 2,364 Cubans have.
Other elements have contributed to Cuba’s success: It has free universal basic health care; it has stunningly high rates of H.I.V. testing; it saturates its population with free condoms, concentrating on high-risk groups like prostitutes; it gives its teenagers graphic safe-sex education; it rigorously traces the sexual contacts of each person who tests positive.
By contrast, the response in the United States — which records 50,000 new infections every year — seems feeble. Millions of poor people never see a doctor. Testing is voluntary, and many patients do not return for their results. Sex education is so politicized that many schools teach nothing about protected sex; condoms are expensive, and distribution of free ones is haphazard. …
Next weekend, our friends at the Bronx Museum are at it again. This month they’ll be collaborating with the Havana Film Festival for the 5th straight year. It’s sure to be a night of great music, film and overall fun.
Check out the info below…
First Fridays! @ The Bronx Museum presents:
Ahi Na’ma’!
5th Annual Collaboration with the Havana Film Festival
of New York
Live performance by Gerardo Cortino y sus Habaneros.
Music by DJ Asho
Screening of of Caminando Aragon (52 min)
Dir. Tané Martínez
2012. USA-Cuba.
Documentary. 52 min.
Location: Bronx Museum North Wing
2nd Floor
Admission: Free
FIRST FRIDAYS!
The Black Power Mixtape
Film screening honoring Black History Month
FREE!
THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE 1967-1975 mobilizes a treasure trove of 16mm material shot by Swedish journalists who came to the US drawn by stories of urban unrest and revolution. Gaining access to many of the leaders of the Black Power Movement—Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis and Eldridge Cleaver among them—the filmmakers captured them in intimate moments and remarkably unguarded interviews. Thirty years later, this lush collection was found languishing in the basement of Swedish Television. Director Göran Olsson and co-producer Danny Glover bring this footage to light in a mosaic of images, music and narration chronicling the evolution one of our nation’s most indelible turning points, the Black Power movement. Music by Questlove and Om’Mas Keith, and commentary from prominent African-American artists and activists who were influenced by the struggle – including Erykah Badu, Harry Belafonte, Talib Kweli, and Melvin Van Peebles – give the historical footage a fresh, contemporary resonance and makes the film an exhilarating, unprecedented account of an American revolution.
Check the video below for short history of Latin music from the 2002 Bravo TV Documentary The Palladium: Where Mambo Was King. This clip details the roots of the music that went on to drastically change the music scene in New York and around the world…
