“I navigate the memory of Cuba. Without maps, without compass, with a camera.” With these words, Marcos Pimentel begins his film, a second-year assignment at the Cuban film academy EICTV.
On 16mm and in static shots, the director captures the island, from derelict buildings to trembling stray dogs and from overcrowded buses to puppies having their first bath. The narrator talks dreamily in voice-over about the Cubans and their customs, and about the camera as an instrument to record and retrieve memories.
Not long after Isla, Pimentel began making documentaries in Brazil. Despite this change of location, it is not hard to see in this early film academy project a blueprint for his later work. An example is the documentary Skin, screened at IDFA in 2021, about the murals and graffiti in Belo Horizonte. Like Isla, this tranquil city symphony is an exercise in patience, but under the surface there is a community that cannot and will not be forgotten.
