El Futuro Es Hoy (2009): A Poetic Look at Generation Y or 90

Abstract

El futuro es hoy (2009) is a short 35-minute documentary based on an idea, photography and direction of Sandra Gomez (1976-) shot in Havana between 2006 and 2008. It is the second documentary by this young director graduated from the International School of Film and Television in Havana (2004), who moved to Zurich (Switzerland), where she has been living since 2005. It is in Switzerland where, thanks to the producer Peacock Film, Sandra receives funding for her films. Therefore, this is a film that has not been financed by the Cuban government, but which has won awards in Cuba as well as receiving international awards.1 Significantly, Sandra's cinema seems to be born with a vocation to highlight what Cuban and cubanidad mean in Cuba today.2In her first documentary Las camas solas (14 minutes, 2006), her commitment is already evident, with its obvious sensitivity to the current reality of Havana, which is portrayed through a dismal episode in the recent history of the capital - the devastation of Hurricane Ivan in 2004. The catastrophe caused the Cuban government to shelter many families as a result of the damage, leaving dilapidated buildings and 'single beds', as the title poetically suggests. However, Mother Nature does not seem to be the only culprit in the state of deterioration that is Havana and Cuba in general. Starting, perhaps ironically, using a natural accident, the beauty of this film lies in the ability of Gomez to introduce a sad and dilapidated city. The urban area of Havana is portrayed in a way that evokes tears not only because of the hurricane but unfortunately mostly, and here comes the political message, because of the evident need for an urban renewal that was claimed in the 1960s as one of the specific projects of the Cuban revolution, but is yet to come. Within this historical context, the attempt to enact a ruined city goes beyond the purely aesthetic: the poetics of Las camas solas contains a political message, albeit initially, ambiguous.Using as a pretext the destructive effects of Hurricane Ivan, Las camas solas shows a social attitude committed to portraying the lack of new homes in Havana. However, Sandra's commitment is in principle ambivalent. On one hand, it could be argued that Hurricane Ivan is read as not just an accident of nature but rather it symbolises a Cuban government that comes to act as a permanent cyclone, generating sorrow and distress. This position would be an example of the group of Cuban intellectuals, already mentioned by the scholar Linda Howe, who are not afraid to examine the ways in which government restrictions have distorted 'our understanding of post-revolutionary Cuban cultural history' (Howe 2004: 14).However, the work of Sandra Gomez could also be interpreted through a Marxist prism: this is a documentary that represents another case of artistic freedom, coinciding with utopian values promoted by the Revolution and, in this particular case, by the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC founded in 1959 by the Cuban government). Since the 1960s, the ICAIC has been promoting films that include criticism of many aspects of the Revolution. As the critic John Hess has suggested, this would be the reason why many Cuban films continue to fascinate viewers both inside and outside Cuba (Hess 1999: 207).This article will attempt to unravel the commitment seen in the work of Sandra Gomez. Specifically, it focuses on the analysis of the documentary El futuro es hoy, which, it is argued, is filmed with great poetic sensibility, in the sense that it shows us a harsh reality but is sensitive at the same time. The main conclusion drawn is that Sandra Gomez is confirmed as a Cuban filmmaker able to sensitise the audience to poetic truths through highly personal manner of filming, which is characterised by going beyond mere criticism, becoming a filmmaker-writer of her time.El futuro es hoy begins with music that seems to scream for help, without explicitly saying so. …