Cuban Dreams O  
Feature Length Documentary
Produced and Directed by Gail Reaben

Synopsis

Cuban Dreams is a feature length documentary exploring the dreams of the Cuban people.
Since Fidel Castro has resigned, and brother Raul is now President, we begin to feel the winds of change.  
Perhaps the people's dreams are changing as well.

Who are these Cuban people?  As a young university student from Taiwan said recently in the NY Times, "To see
is to believe.  Cuba is a mystery for us, so we were very curious as to what people look like, how everything works
there".  For nearly 50 years, what most people know about Cuba is about Castro, the Revolution and the power
struggle between the United States and this tiny island. So little is known about who the Cuban people really are
and what they dream for themselves.  Their lives are dominated by restriction and economic hardship.  Does living
in this environment cause them to restrict those dreams or does the soul always find a way to soar, no matter what
kind of enclosure it finds itself?

Cuban Dreams will explore their lives in the houses in which they live, where they work and where they play, all   
against  a backdrop frozen in time from the 1950's.
Biography/Filmography

Gail Reaben is the Producer/Director of Be Bop Babies,
winner of the Platinum Remi Award, Best Documentary
Short, Worldfest Film Festival, 2006. It screened
internationally in 2007, including the Short Film Corner,
Cannes Film Festival.  Invitational screenings include the
Jecheon Music & Film Festival in Korea, 2007 and the North
by Northeast Music and Film Festival in Toronto, 2008.

Be Bop Babies was selected, in 2007, for PBS’ The
Territory, a series of 13 short films chosen from international
submissions.

Reaben attended Sam Houston State, the University of
Oklahoma, Jamaica School of Art (Kingston, Jamaica) and
graduated from the University of St. Thomas, Houston, TX
with  a B.A. in Art.   She was  president of an audio
duplication and video duplication, and video production
company for 15 years.  In addition to being an award making
filmmaker, she is also an award winning painter as well as a
published writer of mystical phenomenon.
In Cuba, there are no clothes dryers
so all laundry is dried outside.
Old Havana architecture.
The Malecon, Habana's sea wall where young couples
spend their evenings looking out to sea, dreaming of their
future.
In a local restaurant, a large
painting of revolutionary, Che
Guevara.
Copyright 2008
Gail Reaben
All rights reserved
Coming Soon!
Cuba's The OK Band. Photo taken in Old Havana
c
Sergio, our translator in Cuba and
Steve Faytis, Associate Producer.
Cuba News Events
Gail Reaben, in Havana
 









Helping Cuban Animals!  There is a couple in Florida,
Les Inglis and his wife, who are trying desperately to
bring  much needed assistance to the dogs and cats
in Cuba. A large number are starving.  There is only
one veterinarian in all of Havana and you have to go
through a hole in a fence to find him. They have no
anesthesia, no pain killers, no antibiotics -- no
medicine to treat sick dogs and cats.  Please see
their story and check out their site:
http://helpingcubananimals.blogspot.com