MOVIES - DOCUMENTARIES
CONQUISTADORS OF CUBA
by Arto Halonen
VOD
Can a blind man bring the spirit of Che Guevara back to life? A film about the history of special old American cars, love and the man whose face shows the two sides of Cuba's soul.
Nearly blind Maximiliano, 62, has been given an important task. He has been asked to fix Che Guevara's old car in Havana and bring it back to life. Maximiliano's passion are the old American cars. He himself owns one with a motor taken from former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista's car. Maximiliano's good friend, Mario Borges, owns an old American car that used to belong to mobster Meyer Lansky whose fate interlaced closely with Batista and Che Guevara.
CONQUISTADORS OF CUBA is a film about three historical cars and their current owners. It is also a touching story of a man with two faces, the very image of the soul of Cuba and a film about the beauty and greatness of ordinary people under the pressure of totalitarian regimes.
Credits
Year: 2004
Country: FIN
Running Time: 91 Min.
Director: Arto Halonen
Author: Arto Halonen
Producer: Art Films Production AFP Oy
Executive Producer: Arto Halonen
Co-Producer: Werner Schweizer, YLE TV2 Documentaries, SF DRS, Paul Riniker, Elephant Films
Camera: Jari Pollari, Arto Halonen
Editor: Jukka Nykänen, Timo Peltola, Arto Halonen
Sound: Heikki Innanen / Soundwise Oy
Music: Tuomas Kantelinen
Production Manager: Tony Gonzales Martin
Cast: Maximiliano Fremiol Camba Artiguet, Josefina Aldanas, Carlos Reyes, Eduardo Mesejo Maestre, Niurka Corona, Jorge Jorge, Gilberto Smith Duquesne, Carmen Gladys Mesa de los Santos, Earl George McCatty Blackwood, Mario Borges, Osvaldo Fonts Hernandez, Gilberto Aldanas, Yolanda Acosta Garcia
Festivals DocPoint Helsinki, 2005
International Short Film Festival Tampere, 2005
Visions du Réel Nyon, 2005