Afro-Cuban films

Part of the Afro-Cuban Showcase at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC.

Part of the Afro-Cuban Showcase at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC.

Centella is Coming (Centella va venir)

Cuba/Uruguay, 2013 / 12 min.
Spanish with English subtitles
Director: Agustín Peralta Lemes

During the late 18^th century in Cuba, a Spanish count and owner of a sugar mill decides to hold a dinner during Holy Week with twelve of his slaves as an allegory of Jesus with his twelve apostles at the Last Supper. When racial inferiority is predicated as “God’s will” and exploitation exceeds what the human soul can bare, a slave uprising threatens the fate of the sugar plantation. 

With this fictional story, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, one of Cuba’s most renowned directors, presents how religion and politics naturalized the crimes and abuses inherent in slavery.

During the era of the Spanish colonial rule, a settlement of escaped slaves (called palenques) located in the Sierra Maestra in eastern Cuba is the site of an epic story about the struggle for unconditional freedom for the black population. Surrounded by an atmosphere of treachery and war, the black leaders will have to decide whether to strive for a partial freedom that promises a halfway peace, or total equality for their people—a fight that could result in the extermination of their communities.