Screen Cuba, 16-29 March 2025 - Tickets on sale now!
Sunday, 16 March 2025, 5:00pm
Screen Cuba is a UK film festival which aims to celebrate the achievements and challenges of the Cuban people through the lenses of their filmmakers since the 1959 Revolution, and present films rarely screened in the UK. With a range of directors and diverse themes, it features inspiring shorts, ground-breaking features, documentaries, and discussions with Cuban film specialists. It is not a commercial project – and any funds raised after the cost of screenings will support the vital restoration and digitalisation projects of the Cuban Film Institute.
Book tickets and see the full programme here
It is a collaborative project of the charity Music Fund for Cuba, the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, the Cuban Embassy in the UK and the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC).
After the resounding success of the first festival in March 2024 which saw all screenings sell out, the festival will return in 2025 with an expanded programme to include more cinemas in London and across England and Wales.
The political importance cannot be overestimated. Cuban filmmakers, like the rest of the island, are facing formidable challenges. The blockade and the culture war against Cuba will undoubtedly deepen under the new Trump administration, and resources and distribution networks will become ever scarcer. These severe conditions are compounded with the island’s recent hurricanes, electricity outages and even an earthquake.
In these circumstances, the Festival provides a much-needed platform for cinema from the island, and will help to undermine the isolation the US government tries to impose. Screen Cuba will also support projects of the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC). Funds raised by the 2024 Festival restored the first two cartoon shorts featuring the much-loved rebel character Elpidio Valdés created by Juan Padrón, the father of animation in Cuba, which will be screened at the Festival.
All of the films had an impact on Cuban society, often sparking widespread discussions and debate on release, and resulting in real changes in how issues like homophobia, race discrimination, bureaucracy and relations within the family are approached. These are universal themes that will strike a chord with UK audiences too, and will hopefully deepen understanding of the power of cinema to draw people into public debate and action.
The second edition of Screen Cuba: Films to change the world comes to UK cinema screens this March. The Festival again offers a selection of outstanding contemporary films, as well as those produced over the last six decades. It returns to The Garden Cinema in Covent Garden, plus the ICA and Birkbeck University Cinema in London. Outside of London there are three screenings in Wales as part of Wales One World Film Festival, and screenings in regional cinemas including Oxford, Norwich, Nottingham, Leeds and and others to be confirmed.
