Durango Film: An Independent Film Festival kicks off five days of films tonight with its free movie night at the Gaslight Theatre.
Movies shown will include “The Tiger Hunter,” “Sea Gypsies: The Far Side of the World” and two sets of shorts – the “No Shortage of Laughter” program and the “International Documentary Shorts Program.”
Included in the “International Documentary Shorts” is a film called “Soy Cubana.” Coming in at just 17 minutes, it highlights the music of the Vocal Vidas, an a cappella quartet from Cuba.
I had the chance to catch up with the film’s producer, Robin Miller Unger, (before she could head off to Mesa Verde), to find out a little about where the idea for the film came from and why she thinks this movie has resonated so strongly with audiences.
Q: How did you get involved with this project?
A: It all started about two and a half years ago, November 2014. I went to Cuba with a girlfriend. The reason we didn’t bring our husbands was because Cuba, especially at that time, and even now, I think, you really check out – no internet, no phone. For people who do business when they’re on vacation, it’s not going to work.
So she and I went off to Cuba for two and a half weeks with a group of archaeologists. I’m not an archaeologist, I’m a speech pathologist. At that time, you had to go into Cuba on a cultural-exchange trip, so we went archaeology. And that was the only reason I think we were way over to the east in Santiago de Cuba. So we were in Santiago to see this fortress, and we walked in, and it’s not a big tourist destination, so we walked in and we were really the only people in this fortress at that moment, and you could hear this music from somewhere, and it was just these voices. And we wandered around and found this chapel where these women were performing.
Q: So just by happenstance?
A: Just by happenstance. And they only perform there once a week, so we just happened to be there at the right time, the right day. We were all just stunned listening to them. ... And I got back on the bus and I said, “Wow, this could be a great documentary. There could be a story here.”
I always, since college, have wanted to make a documentary, and usually my husband would say, “Oh, it’s a good idea, but it’s not going to work out,” or “It’s going to be too expensive” or there’d be some rationale for not pursuing it. But this time, I had filmed them on my iPhone, four songs, and I just played the video, and there was this kind of dramatic pause and he said, “Just do it.”
So then I talked to my son, who’s a director, and he’s a director of narrative films; he had not done a documentary, he had done narrative shorts at that point. And he said, “You know, I’ll hook you up with somebody. It’s a great idea, I love it.” And then two days later, he called me and he said, “You know what? I’ll do it, and I’m going to approach a friend of mine.”
They knew each other from high school, but they had gone off to separate colleges, best friends ... and the two of them came on board, and we went back to Cuba with one of the original guides, the guy who had the license to get the archaeology group in. He had the license to get us back in and we went in as a small cultural exchange group.
The stars aligned because, you know, we didn’t have time to bond with these women before. Usually for a documentary, you have to establish trust with the people who are going to be in the film. We got there the first night and had a dinner in this privately owned – in Cuba, people have now started to have restaurants in their homes called paladares. And we sat and we just had the most wonderful meal. And there was a real trust, they were on board, they were thrilled.
We shot it in about six days. We ended up with about eight hours of footage, and then, of course, you want to cut it down so that you have something that is interesting and not too long.
Q: You guys have won a bunch of awards. What do you think it is about this short that resonates with people?
A: I think it really is ... as I stood in that chapel, I thought, “This is just pure joy. It is something that as a world we need.” You know, it sounds like a cliché, but it’s just that to be able to step back from all the trauma and daily life, and say, “Wow, this is just ...” And it’s in a society, which I didn’t really understand until we made the film, how important the arts are in Cuba.
Q: Were there any challenges in filming?
A: Actually, it was so ... it all went so well. No. I think the challenge was kind of for me, that fear of “This is my first film” and that kind of fear of “Is everything going to go well?’” ... that kind of underlying anxiety. But things could not have gone better; everybody participated willingly, and everybody was so excited to be a part of it.”
katie@durangoherald.com
If you go
What: “Soy Cubana,” shown as part of Durango Film’s International Documentary Shorts Program.
When: 6 p.m. today, 9 a.m. Friday, 6 p.m. Sunday.
Where: Gaslight Theatre 1, 102 E. Fifth St.
Tickets: For tickets, visit durangofilm.org.
More information: To hear the Vocal Vidas’ recording of “Yo Si Tumbo La Mata,” visit soycubanamovie.com.
