Motherland or Death

An existential documentary that brings together histories and relationships from all walks of life in today’s Cuban society. Cuban traditions are vividly depicted here. Exhumation of relatives’ remains, or the rite of passage in which a family of modest means is ready to spend its entire year’s budget to celebrate their daughter’s fifteenth birthday. The moves of the Rueda Casino dance that keeps Europeans coming to the island; the musical group of the Izquerda brothers, who may play to entertain dancers today and tomorrow may use their rhythms to put a voodoo ritual audience into a trance. An unhurried philosophical narrative against background shots of Havana’s daily routines.
Screening Schedule

No physical screenings scheduled.
Script: Vitaly Mansky
Cinematography: Leonid Konovalov, Vitaly Mansky
Editing: Maksim Karamishev
Sound: Maria Ushenina, Sergey Ovcharenko
Music: Sergio David Calzado y su Charanga Abaner, Yadam Gonsalez y Jorge Gomes, Carlos Luebla, Moncada
Production: Genfilm, Vertov Real Cinema
Producers: Gennady Kostrov
Format: Color
Production Country: Russia
Production Year: 2011
Duration: 99
Contact: Deckert Distribution info@deckert-distribution.com
Awards
Diploma of the Cinema Experts and Critics Guild – Kinotavr 2011, Russia

Vitaly Mansky

Filmography

1988 Boomerang (short)
1990 Post (short)
1993 Cuts of a Recurrent War (short)
1999 Private Chronicles. Monologue
2002 Broadway. Black Sea 
2006 Wild, Wild Beach 
2009 Beginning / Nikolina Gora. Epilogue 
2011 Motherland or Death 
2015 Under the Sun
2018 Putin’s Witnesses
2023 Eastern Front