The rap music we hear, which is produced outside Cuba's state-run music industry, is politically audacious and charged with personal expression and uplift. The film was produced by Charlize Theron's socially conscious company, Denver and Delilah films.
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New York PostKyle Smith
New York PostKyle Smith
The film, made by two Cuban-American exiles (and produced by their friend, Charlize Theron), makes an ironic point about Cuba: This is a land where the grandparents are revolutionaries (or at least say they are) but the kids are yearning for capitalist globalization.
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Village Voice
Village Voice
A vital look at Cuba's tenaciously grassroots hip-hop scene.
East of Havana is a rare glimpse of everyday life in Cuba, where big questions and obstacles confront the rappers at seemingly every turn. Some of their lyrical criticism of the government is downright brave. The artists don't live in utter squalor, but are certainly impoverished by American standards.
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Entertainment WeeklyScott Brown
Entertainment WeeklyScott Brown
East of Havana picks at these politico-philosophical threads rather than pulling them, and the sense of a larger movement is fleeting. There's a beat, but we never quite see who's dancing to it.
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VarietyRobert Koehler
VarietyRobert Koehler
The temptations of allowing a promotional video to seep inside a genuine non-fiction study nearly overtake East of Havana and its look at a bubbling hip-hop culture in Cuba.