Habaneros

Julien Temple / Cuba, United Kingdom / 2017 / 126 min
Habaneros_Poster_Landscape_1200 Habaneros_Poster_Landscape HAVANA STILL 05_1200 HAVANA STILL 09_1200
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  • International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam

  • MoMA's Doc Fortnight

  • Buenos Aires Festival of International Independent Cinema

  • Sydney Film Festival

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Synopsis

Spanish and English with English subtitles

Acclaimed filmmaker Julien Temple (The Filth and the Fury, Absolute Beginners) celebrates the rich history of Cuba and its people in a documentary homage to Havana.

Released in North America for the first time, Habaneros weaves together unseen archival footage, animations, movie excerpts, and interviews. The film features a vibrant soundtrack of salsa, jazz, rumba, mambo, and hip hop, presenting key moments in the city’s recent history—from the abolition of slavery at the end of the 19th century to the revolution led by Fidel Castro—through Trump’s first election.

Habaneros was produced in the 2010s, a period marked by economic change, expanding tourism, and increased global exchange. The documentary takes on added significance when viewed from today’s perspective as Cuba faces a deep economic and humanitarian crisis, intensified by renewed U.S. sanctions. In this context, Habaneros captures a recent past that helps illuminate the social resilience, cultural expression, and everyday strategies that continue to shape Cuban life under mounting pressure.

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About the Director
Julien Temple is a British filmmaker renowned for his vivid, archive-rich documentaries and music films. Emerging from London’s punk scene, he first made his name with groundbreaking work on the Sex Pistols before building an acclaimed career chronicling music, counterculture, and cultural history. His films include The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle, Absolute Beginners, Glastonbury, Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten, Oil City Confidential, and London: The Modern Babylon.

In his later work, Temple has increasingly turned his attention to the social and cultural identity of specific places, blending music, history, and political context through dynamic archival storytelling. This trajectory extends to Habaneros (2017), where he explores contemporary Havana through its music and everyday life, continuing his longstanding interest in how sound and memory shape the spirit of a city.

Press

“Temple interpolates Cuba’s past and present; its myth and reality. The result is a history but an impressionistic one, implicitly emphasizing that the future is unwritten and that Cuba’s violence and corruption have usually been matched by resilience and resourcefulness. Chaotic and thrilling.” – Phil Harrison, The Guardian

“Unfolding a two and a half years process of research and filming, it shows history as much as it gives voice to specific and different interpretations of facts: to Cuban people of today who, despite cyclones and embargo, bureaucracy and Trump, keep on living in Cuba.” – Duna Viezzoli, Arte por Excelencias

Notes on the Film

“I’ve tried to make a balanced film and I hope it gets to Cuban people. To those Cubans who are able to see good things as well as bad ones; I made my film for them. Their situation is not easy and it is amazing how they manage to hold on.”

– Julien Temple, Director

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