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The Film

Cuba Mia tells the story of a group of Cuban Jews who left Cuba as children in the wake of the communist revolution and who return to their homeland in 1998 on a mission led by the Jewish Solidarity Foundation.

What begins as a routine arrival from the Havana airport onto a tour bus by an official guide, turns into a magical and emotional journey into their past as they recognize old landmarks passing by. It is evident that while little has changed on the island in the forty years they have been gone, each traveler’s relationship to that lost time is unique as they are confronted with the Cubanness they tried so hard to preserve.

While the politics of Post-Castro Cuba exist as an undercurrent in this story, the film strikes a more personal note as we share each character's rediscovery of their lost childhood while they retrace their history in Cuba. We follow Luis Stabinski to his father's guayavera store and Male Nick to her elementary school and begin to understand the intimacy of their tight-knit community. We also visit the synagogue where the community congregated for social gatherings and juxtapose its decrepit condition with images that reveal its rich past. As these emotional events unfold, so does the story of their families' sudden migration to the United States during the revolution.

As each day passes, we visit a new landmark, a home, or a relative. The informal relationship between the filmmaker and the characters creates an intimate portrait of a people struggling to resolve their displaced identities.

This story resonates with many immigrants who return to their home after working so hard to establish a better life in America.