SIN LA HABANA

Winner of Best Canadian Feature at VIFF 2021

Leo, a talented ballet dancer (real-life ballet dancer Yonah Acosta) and lawyer Sara (Evelyn Castroda O’Farrill) yearn for a better life together by leaving Cuba; finding all other routes blocked, they concoct a scheme for Leo to romance a hapless tourist. When Iranian-Canadian Nasim (Aki Yaghoubi) falls for Leo’s charm, all their worlds turn upside down. The film is a visual feast: the stunning cinematography captures the vibrant heat and colours of Cuba in sun-drenched scenes and pulsing rhythms, and the chill grey and the white blowing snow of a Montreal winter.

Sin La Habana is a sensitive, nuanced portrayal of dreams, ambition, and the search for fulfillment in a tough, unfeeling, and often unhelpful world. – VIFF

A instancias de su novia, un bailarín de ballet afrocubano frustrado seduce a una solitaria divorciada iraní-canadiense para conseguir un pasaje de Cuba a Canadá, donde planea reunirse con su novia.

Kaveh Nabatian has spent the last decade directing and shooting fiction films, music videos, television series, and documentaries all over the world: from Nunavut, Guyana, and South America to New York and Montreal (where he splits his time).

With his Juno award-winning band, Bell Orchestre, he has released two records, toured everywhere from the Baltics to the Yukon, and collaborated with the likes of LaLaLa Human Steps, Arcade Fire, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra.

His work confronts the gap between film and music. He aspires to make films that have the immediacy of music, and to make music that has the evocative energy of film.