La moderna poesia

A very personal travelogue of Cuba. The anarchy and vitality of everyday survival is one level of the film, another are the portraits of Che Guevara dominating the country. We see his huge face on walls and billboards which proclaim: „Your example lives“, „Your ideas survive“. We also see his icon everywhere at the souvenir markets, on T-shirts, ashtrays and mugs. The contradiction between those high demands and reality, between pathos and kitsch, mirrors my own divided situation as a tourist in a socialist country. I wonder: „ What has become of Che? And then I ask myself: What has become of us?“ Birgit Hein shows in her video the everyday life of a country which has come to terms with socialism and preserves its longing in a museum. In denying herself any sentimentality she relies on the reality of tourist rip-off and surveillance cameras that speaks for itself. But sometimes Che Guevara looks you right in the eye, and then you suddenly believe for a moment that something which doesn't exist might just be possible after all.