Still from "Tent City", courtesy of the Filmoteca de Catalunya
Activity
Wednesday May 28, 2025
Tent City / Apollo, Man to the Moon, by Miñuca and Fernando Villaverde
Memory Is a Shattered Landscape: Independent Cuban Film Series
in progress
Apollo, Man to the Moon (1970) and Tent City (1980), the first and last of the films made by the creative couple Fernando and Miñuca Villaverde in the United States, are essential parts of the cinema of the Cuban diaspora, intimate and collective records of a national rift that continues to this day. Created on the basis of a cross between experimental cinema, fiction and documentary, the Villaverdes’ work is a fundamental predecessor of today’s Cuban avant-garde film. The copies to be screened are the result of the project to restore their diaspora films recently carried out by the Filmoteca de Catalunya.
In Apollo, Man to the Moon, two Cuban film-makers who have just arrived in New York record life in the city, the sounds and sights of its streets and its people, at the time of the first human moon landing. Tent City is a documentary portrayal of some of the refugees in the Mariel boatlift of 1980, in which 120,000 Cubans left the island and went to Florida. Whenever one of the characters looks at the camera, the authors appear with their own exile and their own body, filling the theatre with their ironic rebellion and their nostalgic humour.
Presentation and Q&A conducted by Miñuca and Fernando Villaverde, directors of “A media voz”, and José Luis Aparicio, curator of the film series.
19:00 – 19:15 h
Introduction by José Luis Aparicio, curator of the cycle Memory is a Shattered Landscape.
19:15 – 20:15 h
Screening of Tent City, Miñuca Villaverde, 1980, USA, OVSE, 30’, digital screening and Apollo, Man to the Moon, Fernando Villaverde, 1970, USA, OVSE, 27’, digital screening.
20:15 – 20:45 h
Post-screening discussion with Miñuca Villaverde, Fernando Villaverde, and José Luis Aparicio.
this activity is part of
participants
José Luis Aparicio 
Fernando Villaverde 
Miñuca Villaverde
artists
3 artists
From May 23, 2025 to January 11, 2026