Summaries

Synopsis

The film's entire premise rests on the two elderly spouses, Candelaria and Victor Hugo, played harmoniously and with enormous sensitivity by Cuban actors Veronica Lynn and Alden Knight. The director is let into their house, with its peeling walls, where every evening they have dinner by candlelight - not because of any particular spark of passion, but rather owing to Havana's rationed electricity supply. Their monotonous lives drift by, as they eat their meagre meals and are forced to endure all kinds of deprivation. They tend to a quintet of chicks in their house as if they were their children, Candelaria sings in a bar for tourists, and Victor Hugo sells stolen cigars on the sly so that he can afford to buy meat once in a while. One day, however, the discovery of a video camera mislaid by some foreign holidaymaker serves to turn the routine of the husband and wife on its head. What should they do? Return it, sell it on, or hang onto this forbidden object?Just when it seems to have arrived at the very core of its narrative - involving the mischievous game that the two spouses engage in thanks to the presence of the video camera in the house, which stirs up an unexpected passion in them - Hendrix Hinestroza's movie unfurls an additional and surprising scenario that sees the couple subject to an indecent proposal from an unscrupulous receiver of stolen goods (Austrian actor Philipp Hochmair). The question at this point becomes a different one: what are we willing to do to lead a slightly more comfortable life? And when is it time to say enough is enough? By Vittoria Scarpa as provided in cineuropa.org.