US movie 'The Last Rafter' to be screened at Havana Film Festival

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7 December 2020

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Havana, Dec 7 (Prensa Latina) US film 'El ultimo balsero' (The Last Rafter), by Cuban filmmakers Carlos R. Betancourt and Oscar E. Ortega, will be screened on Monday at the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, which runs until December 13.

The film refers to the dry feet, wet feet policy, which allowed that Cuban immigrants can enter the United States only for stepping on US coast. That policy was ended by the Barack Obama administration on January 12, 2017.

The film narrates the life of Ernesto (Hector Medina), a young Cuban who after risking his life crossing the Florida Straits on a raft, searches Miami for his long-absent father.

The plot places the viewer amid a difficult and new US society for the young emigrant, who became the first Cuban undocumented immigrant in the United States who must battle the bigger fear of deportation.

The film tries to show a part of the reality, not only of Cubans but also of all Latinos who reach the United States, the filmmakers declared.

The fiction film was produced by Alina Rodriguez and Andrea Lopez and featured the performances by Nestor Jimenez Jr, Cristina Garcia, Jennifer Rodriguez, Chaz Mena and Francisco Porras, and a poster by multi-awarded Cuban designer Raul Martinez (RAUPA).

Included in the Latin American Panorama section, 'El ultimo balsero' was premiered at the 37th edition of the Miami International Film Festival with a special audience that forced a second screening.

Under the slogan 'Lo que receto el doctor' (What the doctor prescribed), the 42nd edition of the film event proposes an approach to this work at the Acapulco movie theater in Havana.