“Pork crackling with wifi!” Welcome to the park in Havana where public wifi makes for a new kind of meeting place.
In 2016, ETECSA – the only telephone company in Cuba – installed wifi routers in 18 public parks across the country. For many Cubans, this meant being able to go online for the first time. Our latest documentary paints a portrait of the social gathering hotspots these parks have since become. Every day crowds of people with smartphones, tablets and chairs turn up to cluster together around the wifi antennas, to a soundtrack of people shouting “conectifai!” (meaning “connection!”). It gives everyone the opportunity to contact loved ones, explore social media, upload photos and find internet dates – activities that reveal much about a rapidly changing Cuba.
The park wifi users help each other get online and roam around looking for better reception, before settling down to peer at their screens together. During the day, it’s mostly older women who turn up, but in the evenings there are groups of young people, flirting and engaging in more edgy wifi pursuits.
In the meantime, a very Cuban kind of commerce is also flourishing, with vendors selling internet cards, drinks and snacks, shouting slogans like “pork crackling with wifi”.
The film, directed by Cuban director Zoe Garcia, was developed through a programme at Havana’s EICTV film school for local documentary makers to produce a short about Cuba in transition. Garcia’s interest was more in the changes to everyday life rather than the much-discussed changes to politics. She discussed this in more detail in an interview at the Sundance film festival.
Conectifai was developed through an initiative supported by the Sundance Institute’s documentary film programme.
Coming up: White Fright
In April 2015, Robert Doggart was arrested for plotting what would have been the deadliest terror attack on US soil since 9/11, in Islamberg, NY. So why have Americans heard nothing about him?
Released 16 February
Our documentary recommendations
At the cinema: There’s a rare screening of one of the best documentaries of the year, Ex Libris, at Dochouse in London. The latest film from legendary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman invites you to spend three hours behind the scenes at the New York Public Library. Turning his inquisitive eye towards one of the world’s greatest institutions of learning, Wiseman offers a captivating and engrossing portrait of this incredible resource of knowledge and community support for all of New York’s inhabitants, no matter their social status or ethnicity. Despite its quality, the documentary, sadly, isn’t planned for general release in the UK, so this is a rare chance to see it.
Outside London, book ahead for the excellent Queercore: How to punk a revolution in Manchester, about the LGBTQ punk scene. And in Glasgow, catch The Final Year, with its intimate access to the last days of the Obama administration as its members attempt to solidify policies they believe will define their legacy, promote diplomacy and fundamentally alter how the US government confronts questions of war and peace.
On demand: We recommend you immediately watch Errol Morris’ multi-part drama-documentary hybrid Wormwood on Netflix. It attempts to find the truth behind the mysterious death of a US scientist entangled in a secret cold war programme. But that only tells part of the story. A deep dive into the history of 20th-century USA, it deliberately plays with the idea of what truth means. Formally exciting and experimental, it’s a must-watch.
From the Guardian
After the news that Hong Kong’s democracy movement leader Joshua Wong has been imprisoned for the second time, watch The Infamous Chalk Girl, about a protester at the heart of the movement. Two years since her arrest made her an accidental hero of the pro-democracy umbrella movement, the 16-year-old must decide whether to rejoin the battle alongside the “localist” youth.
We also recommend you watch our documentary series about Stoke-on-Trent if you haven’t already, made by Guardian filmmaker John Domokos.
Latest documentary news
The documentary Oscar nominations are out - for a take on them from our head of documentaries, Charlie Phillips, read his new monthly documentary column in the Observer’s New Review
Looking further ahead, there are two Weinstein documentaries on the horizon – one from the BBC and Lightbox that claims to be the definitive documentary take on the scandals, and a Channel 4 documentary for their Dispatches strand about Weinstein and the UK documentary industry.
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