June 16, 2011 – Unfinished Spaces, a documentary in competition at this year’s Los Angeles Film Festival, will showcase at the LA Live Regal Cinemas June 19, 24, and 25.
The documentary tells the story of three architects who in 1961 were commissioned by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara to create Cuba’s National Art Schools on the grounds of a former golf course in Havana. They were offered an open budget and complete freedom of creativity. Their designs took off rapidly and almost immediately the buildings filled up with students. However, just a few years later, as Cuba became more involved with the Soviet Union, the construction was halted. The semi-constructed buildings continued to serve as classrooms, and sometimes even as dwellings where people would cook, wash and dry, and sleep.
Forty years later, a group local and foreign artists began to push for the renovation of the Schools of Art. They wanted permission from the Cuban government to start an international movement to fund the reconstructions. It was then that Fidel Castro (as seen in the documentary) renewed his promise that the Schools of Art that he had supported and fallen in love with four decades earlier would be finished.
The documentary is a conversation with the three architects - Roberto Gottardi, Ricardo Porro, and Vittorio Garratti - as they explain what their involvement with the Schools of Art meant to them fifty years ago and what it continues to mean until the present day.
This is a must-see documentary that is at once captivating, heart-breaking, and inspiring. It is in English and Spanish with English subtitles, 84 minutes long, and appropriate for all ages. Tickets are $13 and can be purchased at http://filmguide.lafilmfest.com/tixSYS/2011/filmguide/Title/UU
Comments