Roots and Routes: Cuba Cinemas of the Diaspora in the 21st Century

Roots and Routes: Cuba Cinemas of the Diaspora in the 21st Century is a travelling film showcase that unsettles stereotypes and portrays the changing meaning of being Cuban in the 21st Century. At this Thunder Bay event Karen Dubinsky will be on the program presenting on her book _ Cuba beyond the Beach: Stories of Life in Havana _. Havana is Cuba’s soul: a mix of Third World, First World, and Other World. After over a decade of visits as a teacher, researcher, and friend, Karen Dubinsky looks past political slogans and tourist postcards to the streets, neighbourhoods, and personalities of a complicated and contradictory city. Her affectionate, humorous vignettes illustrate how Havana’s residents—old Communist ladies, their sceptical offspring, musicians, underground vendors, entrepreneurial landlords, and poverty-stricken professors—go about their daily lives.

As Cuba undergoes dramatic change, there is much to appreciate, and learn from, in the unlikely world Cubans have collectively built for themselves.