CALLS FROM MOSCOW

LLAMADAS DESDE MOSCÚ

Germany, Cuba, Norway | 2023 | 60 min

Holed up in a flat in Moscow, a group of young people spend their days making all kinds of calls: conversations with distant loved ones, counselling, announcements for migrants. They are Cuban exiles belonging to the LGBTIQ+ community. Russia is the only European country where they can travel without a visa, and many young people leave Havana in search of a new life. But reality is quite different from what they expected. Calls from Moscow is a claustrophobic film about exile, built on distance: within the four walls of the home, through the telephone calls, the film follows the relationships with a crumbling outside world on the brink of war. Mindful of Chantal Akerman's lesson, Luis Alejandro Yero gives life to a work made of correspondences, interweaving themes such as loneliness, sexuality, and gender identity, and questioning the nature of the contemporary devices that accompany the lives of migrants from his own country. (a.d.)