Suite Habana: Screening and Panel Discussion

September 12, 2014 - 6:00 PM

Read discussant Mario A. González-Corzo’s comments on the film’s resonance of the Special Period

As part of the Bildner Center’s Cuban Film Series focusing on the Special Period, this event features the screening of Fernando Pérez’s Suite Habana (2003), followed by a panel discussion. Raúl Rubio (John Jay Col­lege, CUNY), Mario A. González-Corzo (Lehman College, CUNY), and Julie Skurski (Graduate Center, CUNY) will focus their discussion of the film in relation to the Special Period. This event is curated by Professor Jerry Carlson (City College and Graduate Center, CUNY).

The film portrays the lives of 10 ordinary Habaneros in one day during the Special Period. It offers a rich framework for interpretation and analysis. At the same time, the film is a work of art — a visual symphony. NYT critic Neil Genzlinger describes it as “an elusive but intermittently beautiful tone poem on film.”

DISCUSSANTS:

Rubio - 2013Raúl Rubio (Ph.D., Tulane Uni­ver­sity) is Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of For­eign Lan­guages and Lit­er­a­ture at John Jay Col­lege, CUNY. His research is grounded in the emerg­ing inter­dis­ci­pli­nary field of mate­r­ial cul­ture, which exam­ines a wide-range of arti­facts, from cul­tural com­modi­ties to the museum archive. His latest book La Habana: car­tografías cul­tur­ales was pub­lished in 2013 by Adu­ana Vieja press of Spain.

IMG_1090Julie Skurski (Ph.D., Uni­ver­sity of Chicago) was appointed Dis­tin­guished Lec­turer in Anthro­pol­ogy at the Grad­u­ate Cen­ter, CUNY in 2009. She is now at work on Civ­i­liz­ing Bar­barism: Nation­hood, Mas­culin­ity, and Mes­ti­zaje in Early Twentieth-Century Venezuela. She is con­duct­ing research on the rela­tion­ship between sec­u­lar and eso­teric for­ma­tions of national and col­lec­tive iden­tity, focus­ing on Freema­sonry and pop­u­lar reli­gios­ity in Venezuela and Cuba.

_MG_4280for fellowsMario A. González-Corzo (Ph.D., Rut­gers Uni­ver­sity) is Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at the Depart­ment of Eco­nom­ics at Lehman Col­lege, CUNY. His research inter­ests and areas of spe­cial­iza­tion include Cuba’s post-Soviet eco­nomic devel­op­ments, the role of remit­tances in the Cuban econ­omy, and Cuba’s bank­ing and agri­cul­tural sec­tors.