Havana - The new art of building ruins

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Movie
German title Havana - The new art of building ruins
Original title Habana - Arte nuevo de hacer ruinas
Country of production Germany
original language Spanish
Publishing year 2006
length 86 minutes
Age rating FSK o. A.
Rod
Director Florian Borchmeyer
script Florian Borchmeyer
production Matthias Hentschler
music Gustav Mahler , Franz Schubert and others
camera Tanja Trentmann
cut Birgit Mild

Havanna - The new art of building ruins (Original title: Habana - Arte nuevo de hacer ruinas ) is a German documentary film by director Florian Borchmeyer and producer Matthias Hentschler from 2006.

action

Havana , capital of the revolutionary republic of Cuba . The beauty of the city is shaped by the poetics of the ruins. The Havana ruins are not very poetic for those who live in them. House collapses with deaths are the order of the day. For residents, the decay of the city and its homes is a constant source of pain and guilt.

The film portrays five people from Havana who live in buildings in various stages of collapse. They are all trying to flee from an existence that is threatened with ruin itself by living in a ruin. Plumber Totico takes refuge from the noisy inferno of his tenements in the center of Havana to the pigeons on the roof terrace. The homeless Reinaldo has found refuge in the ruins of a theater where Caruso once sang to high society. The former millionaire wife Misleidys leaves the golden cage of her marriage behind her to dream away in the rubble of a former luxury hotel. The expropriated landowner Nicanor is fighting against the decay of his father's house in order to live, at least on a small scale, as if the socialist revolution had not taken place. Writer Ponte builds a philosophy of ruin and thus makes the gradual collapse of the city and the political system explainable and bearable.

Havana - The new art of building ruins tells the stories of people who wait every day for their roof to collapse and yet not want to move out. Elsewhere, their homes would have long since been renovated, converted into museums or demolished. In Havana, on the other hand, the ruins are alive - but also, as the residents are resigned to realize, lives are ruined.

Reviews

“Borchmeyer's film shows Havana as a city in ruins, crumbling buildings of the vanquished bourgeoisie, in which the people of the socialist era tried more badly than right to settle down and survive. always in danger of being injured in a collapse, of being buried by rubble. The whole thing is dealt with in a field between serious social criticism and cultural-aesthetic irony, in images that capture the magic of the city. "

- Fritz Göttler : Süddeutsche Zeitung

“The residents of the ruins that Florian Borchmeyer brings together in his documentary [...] sound resigned and rather romantic and who now, always ready for printing and mostly off-screen, as well as images of decay of downright painful poetry, formulate their distant philosopheme ... again and again, the gaze glides slowly and gently [...] down the facades, wandering over the city, getting intoxicated by the morbid poetry of late classicist window frame ruins against a dreamy blue tropical sky. "

- Jan Schulz-Ojala : Tagesspiegel

“The filmmakers explore the hidden corners of the Cuban capital. A metaphor for the country's political, social and economic situation. "

- El País

“In view of this constellation, which has given us a lot of Cuba clichés, Florian Borchmeyer […] and Matthias Hentschler […] wanted to show a different Havana. Your documentary film […], which the Havana International Film Festival unloaded due to allegedly poor quality and which shortly after received the Bavarian Film Prize, observes a handful of people living in their homes. And that is enough. Because the old town houses in danger of collapsing, the demolished residential silos, the modern theaters and palaces house survivors who seem to exist in a secret world and yet are everyday Havana. "

- Paul Ingendaay : FAZ, March 30, 2007

"The supposed censorship is a ridiculous pipe dream. This film doesn't even meet the minimum quality standards to be shown at a festival. "

- Pedro de la Hoz : Granma, Havana

Awards

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