A documentary that’s been making the festival rounds throughout this year, and winning accolades along the way…

Titled Patria o Muerte, which literally translates as Motherland or Death (which, for more than 50 years, has been Cuba’s motto), it’s set in Cuba and centers on the generation born before the revolution, who are now reaching the end of their lives, as they begin to further understand that they no longer have to live their lives by that decades-old revolutionary mantra. An epoch gradually vanishes, as new generations continue to shift the country’s reality, which hasn’t quite caught up with “outsider” perceptions others have of Cuba.

The film is directed by veteran Russian documentarian Vitaly Mansky, and will next screen at Russian Film Festival in London, which runs from November 4 to 13.

The “gyrating” trailer for it follows below, which you may wonder, after watching it, how exactly it’s connected to the content of the film, as described a few sentences ago. I suppose it’s meant to speak to the country’s image outside of Cuba, versus its reality…? Or a celebration of the death of a previous era, and the ushering in of a new one? Or to indicate the fragmentation of a society between the young and the vivacious versus the older and restive yet restful? Or that there are cute girls in Cuba who can seductively wiggle their hips? Or all of the above? Something else?

Watch: