Cuban Film Baracoa Wins Two Awards at the Trieste Film Festival

The Italo-Cuban film Baracoa, by Cuban filmmaker Luis Ernesto Doñas, took home the Audience Award in the Official Competition of the 41st edition of the Ibero-Latino American Film Festival in the Italian city of Trieste.

The movie also won the award for Best Screenplay, written by the director himself and by Filippo Ascione, in the event's Contemporary Cinema Competition, considered one of the oldest specialized film festivals for Latin American production in Europe.

This Sunday evening, the awards ceremony took place at the Miela Cinema Theater in Trieste, following a week dedicated to promoting cultural diversity and independent cinema from Latin America.

Dogs, by Gerardo Minutti, obtained the award for Best Film in the Official Competition; while the Special Jury Prize went to Angels, by Paula Markovitch; and Lucía Puenzo received the award for Best Director for Pepita, the Gunslinger.

According to the organizers, the lineup gathered 56 feature films, documentaries, experimental cinema, and debut works, distributed across seven sections, including Official Competition, Contemporary, Contemporary Malvinas, Contemporary Latino World, Cinema and Literature, Shalom—The Jewish Path in Latin America, and Special Events.

Baracoa (2025) features production by Pointmedia Italia SRL and De La Huerta Producciones, supported by the Ibermedia Program, the collaboration of the Cuban Cinema Promotion Fund, and the contribution of the Neos agency.

With cinematography by Lorenzo Casadio Vannuci CCS and original music by the prominent Cuban soprano Bárbara Llanes, the film features renowned Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini in the cast, alongside Carlos Luis González, Yadier Fernández, Carlos Pérez Peña, Ana Gloria Buduén, and Giovanni Gusto.

Baracoa explores the distant relationship of Felipe (Giannini), an Italian revolutionary who was a friend of leader Fidel Castro, with his son Pepe, characterized by his homophobic prejudices, and the special bond he forms with his doctor Jimmy, who at night works as the drag queen Estrellita.

Following Felipe's death, his son and the doctor embark on a road trip from Havana to the city of Baracoa, in the easternmost tip of the Caribbean island, in a journey through contemporary Cuba through two characters holding opposing viewpoints.

The work was recently presented at the Film Festival in the city of Lucca, also in Italy; as well as at the 2025 Havana International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, where it received the Súmate collateral award for diversity, and participated out of competition at the Taormina Film Festival, in this country.