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MELAZA

By Carlos LECHUGA

PROMENADES FILMS - as PROD

Drama - Completed 2012

In the village of Melaza to live is a feat. Aldo and Monica are fined just because they are trying to survive.

Festivals
& Awards

Ventana Sur 2013

Video Library

Guadalajara FICG 2014

International Feature

- Year of production
- 2012
- Genres
- Drama
- Countries
- CUBA, PANAMA, FRANCE
- Languages
- SPANISH
- Budget
- 0.3 - 0.6 M$
- Duration
- 80 mn
- Director(s)
- Carlos LECHUGA
- Synopsis
- Sugar was always the essence of Cuba,sugar mills the heart that gave life to most of the country’s villages. Melaza, named for its large sugarcane fields, was one of those. There is no sugar cane in Melaza anymore,the sugar mill was shut down, sugar production was suspended and workers are on hold.
  In a desolate sugar mill, hidden among rusted machinery,Aldo and Monica make love in an old mattress,they live in a pretty small house along with Monica’s eight year old daughter Mara and her grandmother sitting in a wheelchair.
  Aldo teaches swimming in an empty pool. Monica is the only employee still working in the sugar mill, she checks every single day all machinery. What they earn for their jobs is not enough to cover the expenses, as an alternative they rent the house during the day for couples to have sex, in the meantime the family spend their time in the park, desperately waiting to go back home.
  One day, the police punish them with a fine for renting without authorization, now they must find a way to earn some more money to cover expenses and pay the fine. Monica start cleaning houses, but Aldo, unable to find an honest way to earn, starts to sell meat – in Cuba forbidden by law.
  Is raining and the corroded pails, which used to be full of molasses, are now up to the top with dirty water. Finally, Aldo’s students find a place to swim for the first time.
  Aldo goes into the water with them and in a sort of baptism, sinks his head to the bottom. He is now ready to lead a more corrupt life. The couple, as if they had sunk in swampy molasses, tries to keep afloat, living between the ghosts from the past and the impossibility of a better future. Their hopes are all they have, but on this town nothing changes. The sugar mill is still halted, silent.
  The wind raises the dust on the streets. At sunset, everyone in town go to patriotic marches. Before them, life passes. Aldo and Monica join the parade with the illusion that all the hunger and needs will vanish somehow.....

MELAZA

Festivals& Awards

Festivals
& Awards