BBC Imagine - Habaneros You Say You Want a Revolution (2018)

Raul Castro has recently stepped down as president of Cuba, almost 60 years after his brother Fidel and a small band of bearded cigar-smoking guerrillas entered the capital Havana and changed the lives of their people forever.

Using extraordinary and previously unseen archive footage, and shot over the past three years, Julien Temple's two-part film captures the mood of Havana and its people - the Habaneros - at a pivotal moment in time. They share their experience of life in this extraordinary city - the highs and lows, the exhilaration and the suffering. It's a rollercoaster ride from Spanish colony to republic to revolution to the precarious present. Fidel is dead, Obama's hand of friendship is withdrawn and as the US blockade continues to strangle the economy, Havana is literally falling apart.

Almost sixty years on, Castro's Cuban revolution continues to split world opinion as decisively as it did when that small band of bearded guerrillas first entered Havana.

In the second part of Julien Temple's film we hear from the citizens of this extraordinary city how these young revolutionaries put their dreams into practice. With access to remarkable archive footage, we see how they set about building a brave new socialist world on America's doorstep. Now with Obama gone, Trump in the White House, Fidel dead and his brother Raul stepping down from the presidency, Havana too is about to step into the unknown.

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