"Nothing More" (Cuba)

Presented by Tampa Bay International Film Festival

The Studio@620 will host Tampa Bay International Film Festival in an ongoing monthly series of internationally acclaimed films harvested from the Global Film Initiative catalog.   Tampa Bay International Film Festival presents these films as a fundraising effort to host a major festival in September 2013.  Your attendance will help make it happen.  Until then, see the world one film at a time!

Tampa Bay International Film Festival continues this month with a third installment of film from abroad.  Join us for the screening of "Nothing More (Nada +)", a cuban film by Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti, on Tuesday September 25, 2012 @ 7:00 PM

 

Nothing More

Cuba, 2001 (90 minutes)

Red tape muddles up the lives of people worldwide, but in Cuba it may reach more ludicrous extremes than in many other countries. Nothing More, Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti’s first feature film, takes a comical look at Cuban bureaucracy, presenting us with a story of the fictional shenanigans that go on in a Havana post office. Carla (Thaïs Valdés) is a bored young postal clerk who dreams of leaving the country to join her parents in Miami. In the meantime, she steals and rewrites letters in order to brighten the lives of their addressees, however briefly. When her illegal subversion of the postal system is discovered by the office manager, the farce begins — a tornado of outrageously cartoonish characters, Keystone Kops-style chase sequences and even a comic nod to Jean-Luc Godard’s À bout de souffle, with Valdés striking poses à la Jean Seberg. But alongside the bureaucratic lunacy, the film takes a serious look at themes of migration and separation that are specifically Cuban. Carla’s dissatisfaction with her life is offset by the pleasure she takes in helping those around her and by her developing relationship with a co-worker. With the United States always looming on the horizon of her dreams, Carla finds herself increasingly ambivalent about the thought of leaving her native country. Cremata Malberti makes a great paradox crystal clear: Cubans are torn between their desire to lead better lives elsewhere and a yearning to solve the problems at home. Nothing More falls in line with other works of Cuban cinema — Humberto Solás’s Lucía comes to mind — by presenting an astute political message in a wonderfully engaging fashion. Cremata Malberti livens up the story with a frolicsome formal approach: the black-and-white images are occasionally flecked with intense colour, and silent film techniques boost the comic feel of the caper sequences. Thoughtful, cheerful and clever, Nothing More signals the arrival of an important new Cuban filmmaker. — Diana Sanchez (2002 Toronto International Film Festival)  

 

Additional Feature Films Coming Soon:

Tuesday OCTOBER 30, 2012 – 7:00 PM
Ordinary People - SERBIA

Tuesday NOVEMBER 27, 2012 – 7:00 PM
Ocean Of An Old Man - INDIA

Wednesday DECEMBER 26, 2012 – 7:00 PM
STREET DAYS (Quchis Dgeebi) - GEORGIA