In conjunction with our current photography exhibition, “Waiting for Normal: Cuba and the United States”, please join us for a Zoom conversation with photographer and filmmaker Joe Guerriero Please screen Joe Guerriero’s film Curtain of Water from the comfort of your own home and then join us on Zoom for a discussion with the filmmaker.

SCREEN THE FILM HERE

REGISTER FOR THE FILM DISCUSSION HERE

 “Telón de agua,” also titled “Curtain of Water” (an allusion to the legendary Iron Curtain that isolated the ex-Soviet communist states), is photographer Joe Guerriero’s personal quest to make sense of the United States’ trade embargo on Cuba. After several photographic trips to the island nation, during which he developed a deep connection to the people he met, Guerriero felt the need to understand this policy, still in force 53 years after the Cuban revolution. The embargo, known in Cuba as the “bloqueo,” or blockade, is seen by some as an outdated act of reprisal, and by others as a necessary reaction to signal the U.S. rejection of the revolutionary government’s Marxist ideology. In this documentary, Guerriero asks about the reasons for the embargo and tries to identify the opposing interests of the two countries, while also showing its effects on the Cuban people. He presents conversations with Cuban exiles and American activists in the U.S. and personal reflections of everyday Cubans caught in a situation of acute material and cultural privation, to shed light on the political and the human side of this conflict.