Habana Libre is something of an island intrigue, playing on the theme of privilege in a classless society, beauty and art in one of the last communist capitals. It explores the charmed life in Cuba among the creative elite as embodied in a particular farandula or clique of well connected, accomplished, and comely friends. The elegance and intimacy of this creative social world and the identities of some of the players adds to the mischief, given that this is happening in Castro’s Cuba. As interloper, I am pursuing a latent idea that develops as it goes along, subject to my own predilections and intuitions and what I find along the way. Allowed access to such a world inevitably affects one's perception of it, as in the difference of glimpsing something from without and the view from within. Just as in my other projects, I am exploring an allegory of an all too worldly paradise beset by threats from without and by new hierarchies from within, and the inescapable claims of the flesh. Just as the Chinese have made their curious pact between capitalism and communist ideology, Cuba must resolve the contradictions of its revolutionary rectitude and the powerful allure of tropical pleasures. In that tension, as in any autocratic society, there is also the poignant pleasure of a hint of danger, of power at play, and the threat of unforeseen consequences of breaking unwritten, unspoken rules. Habana Libre expresses my experience of Cuba emotionally, in the way it made me feel to be there and to be caught up in this exclusive world, but in this narrow, delectable slice of the Cuban experience, I can't help but see some forming outlines of Cuba's future.

Habana Libre is something of an island intrigue, playing on the theme of privilege in a classless society, beauty and art in one of the last communist capitals. It explores the charmed life in Cuba among the creative elite as embodied in a particular farandula or clique of well connected, accomplished, and comely friends. The elegance and intimacy of this creative social world and the identities of some of the players adds to the mischief, given that this is happening in Castro’s Cuba. As interloper, I am pursuing a latent idea that develops as it goes along, subject to my own predilections and intuitions and what I find along the way. Allowed access to such a world inevitably affects one's perception of it, as in the difference of glimpsing something from without and the view from within. Just as in my other projects, I am exploring an allegory of an all too worldly paradise beset by threats from without and by new hierarchies from within, and the inescapable claims of the flesh. Just as the Chinese have made their curious pact between capitalism and communist ideology, Cuba must resolve the contradictions of its revolutionary rectitude and the powerful allure of tropical pleasures. In that tension, as in any autocratic society, there is also the poignant pleasure of a hint of danger, of power at play, and the threat of unforeseen consequences of breaking unwritten, unspoken rules. Habana Libre expresses my experience of Cuba emotionally, in the way it made me feel to be there and to be caught up in this exclusive world, but in this narrow, delectable slice of the Cuban experience, I can't help but see some forming outlines of Cuba's future.