Unfinished Spaces: A Documentary

The documentary Unfinished Spaces features the National Art Schools in Havana, Cuba, a site WMF has been involved with for more than a decade and perhaps the best example of architecture from the early period of the Cuban Revolution.

In 1961, in the heady first days of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro asked three visionary architects to build the Cuban National Arts Schools on what had been a country club golf course. Before construction was completed, the project was denounced as bourgeois and counter-revolutionary. The story has many more fascinating twists and turns, as the radical magnificent buildings of the National Art Schools became a prism through which we see the turbulent, ever-shifting history of Castro's Cuba and follow the fates of the three architects, now in their 80s, who would get a second chance to revitalize their utopian project.

Reviews

"Lucidly filmed... a stirring study... an absorbing film" - The Hollywood Reporter
"Remarkable story..." - The Los Angeles Times
"Elegantly traces the brief heyday and longer dark period of Cuba's Art Schools" - Variety
"The most visually breathtaking documentary in recent memory" - Tonight at the Movies
"A must-see ... at once captivating, heartbreaking, and inspiring" - Examiner
"Critic's Pick: Go!" - LA Weekly