2000, USA
Director: Julian Schnabel
Producer: Jon Kilik
Production: Fine Line Features
Screenplay: Julian Schnabel and Cunningham O'Keefe
Cast: : Javier Bardem, Olivier Martinez, Andrea Di Stefano
Cinematography: Xavier Pérez Grobet and Guillermo Rosas
Based on the autobiography of the Cuban poet, novelist and playwright Reinaldo Arenas (1943-1990), this is the story of his rural childhood, his early involvement in the Revolution and the persecution and imprisonment he endures for his homosexuality and political writing. He flees Cuba in the 1980 Mariel Harbor boatlift after having been released from prison thanks to an amnesty law. Arenas describes his exile in New York through memories, dreams, nightmares and fiction. He contracts AIDS and decides to end his life in 1990.