Codigo Color, Memorias

From The Cuba Media Project Collection

Directed by William Sabourin O'Reilly

30 minutes / Color
English; Spanish / English subtitles
Release: 2016
Copyright: 2015

 
film stillCODIGO COLOR, MEMORIAS (COLOR CODE, MEMORIES), explores the complex issue of racism through the memories of the picturesque city of Santiago de Cuba.

CODIGO COLOR was initially made for Cuban youth who are unfamiliar with the history of racism in pre-revolutionary Cuba. The film is meant to be a catalyst to provoke discussions about the racism of the past and how this past still affects contemporary Cuba.

The film approaches the subject from a new perspective using a powerful visual language. Color creates the narrative flow, combined with eloquent archival images, CODIGO manages to transport the viewer to the 1950's, a decisive period in Cuban history.

CODIGO interweaves paradoxical and sometimes emotionally searing stories of people who lived through this period with simple physics and artistic theories about the colors that surround us. As human beings, how do we perceive color and how does it affect us? How have interracial relations evolved during the formation of our society?

In these complex times, CODIGO COLOR offers a unique prism on our past, helping us to understand the ways we see, judge and appreciate our relationship to color, and the color of skin.

"Explores colorism and cultural ignorance on the island [of Cuba]... [An] internationally made jewel."San Francisco Bay View

"[Cuba's] landscape and people come to life in this collection... These films introduce viewers to compelling and profound characters, emblematic of life in Cuba when the iconoclasm fades back and allows daily life to run its course."Julia Sweig, Nelson & David Rockefeller Senior Fellow and Director, Latin America Studies and Global Brazil Initiative Council on Foreign Relations

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Purchase DVD for $298.00

Select Accolades

  • Winner, Best Documentary Short, 2016 One World Film Festival
  • Nominated, Best Short Documentary, 2016 San Francisco Black Film Festival
  • 2016 Festival Internacional de Cine de Barranquilla
  • 2016 New Orleans Film Festival
  • 2016 Cuba Im Film Festival
  • 2015 Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano

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