by Niccolò Bruna
Italia/Spagna, 2015, 87'
Associazione Culturale Progetto Cataclisma (Torino) / Niccolò Bruna, Enrico Bona, Andrea Prandstraller (Produttori associati) / 15-L. Films (Carlota Coloma e Adrià Lahuerta)
Havana, Cuba. 54th year of embargo.
From her tiny office overlooking the US Interests Section, Lourdes counsels thousands seeking a travel visa for the US. She fine tunes her customers’ stories, so they have better chances to succeed.
But despite helping others to travel, she has never been able to visit her mother, son and all family in Florida. “I quench the thirst of others every day, yet there’s not a drop of water for me” she states.
After a long wait, Lourdes time has finally come: her interview is set. Her dream to visit her dying mother was never so close.
Will she able to travel and finally overturn her destiny of forced separation?
Will she forced to leave behind Enit, her beloved lesbian partner?
The travel agent is the intimate story of the life of Lourdes, an ordinary but extraordinary woman. At the same time is an universal story: the one which is made of isolation and separation that is common to many Cubans and to anyone in the world who is forced by events to be separated from the loved ones.
The film is a tribute to the dignity of the Cuban people, always ready to face the storm with a smile. I have told about their heroic everyday life without any folklore nor filters, using the same alive and kicking material of their own desperate existence.
It is a documentary shot in the last period of the freezing relations between Cuba and the United States, during the 54th year of “bloqueo”, the economic embargo, and this is also why it is a unique document which unveils the human consequences of political choices.
The travel agent carries on my personal and human exploration of the female universe and the extraordinary resilience of women.
Maite Vitoria Daneris e Daniel Monti (traduzioni)
Lourdes Gonzales Rosabal, Enit Abreu Gomez
In concordo nella sezione "Documentari" ai David di Donatello 2015-2016