“Their lives are more important than any movie” (Cuban defectors)

[brooklynite]

Salon:

“Una Noche,” a film opening this Friday in New York, depicts the struggles of young people from Havana desperately seeking to get to the United States.

...snip...

Prior to the the Tribeca Film Festival this spring, Analin de la Rua and Javier Nunez, two of the three lead actors from “Una Noche,” disappeared somewhere between a layover in Miami and their arrival in New York.

Their director in “Una Noche,” Lucy Mulloy, told Salon this week that the pair have settled in Las Vegas, close to Nunez’s family. “They’d love to continue acting. That’s their talent. That’s what they feel good at. They want to continue doing that. And they’d love to do more movies. That’s their main thing.” They had not believed they could continue to act in Cuba.

In the three years since the film’s production, de la Rua and Nunez had both taken jobs in Cuba outside the entertainment world. Interviewed using Mulloy as a translator, both actors told Salon that they had not intended to appear in a film in order to leave Cuba, nor had they been inspired to defect by the content of the film. The decision to leave the airport in Miami was spur-of-the-moment: “They had this intention to go to the festival,” said Mulloy, “then they asked, ‘What happens if we don’t get this opportunity again?’”

But they have free health care...and democratic elections! Why leave paradise?

[CBGLuthier]

1. Because they swallowed the american dream, hook, line and sinker

I am sure things will turn out fine for them. Unless they get sick. Or try to work without papers. Or get pulled over for the color of their skin. Or run into gang banging wannabees.

Welcome to paradise.

[brooklynite]

2. You are willing to acknowledge the flaws here....

...some folks here seem to be unwilling to do the same with respect to Cuba.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. +1

[Comrade Grumpy]

4. Good thing they weren't from Mexico. They'd be in an US immigration prison.