La Fabri-K
Dir. Lisandro Perez Rey
Cuba, 2005, 65 mins, Colour

The film explores the separation of four Cuban families and their efforts to remain connected despite politics and distance. There's enough in it to move and irritate just about everyone with a stake in the details. And that's the documentary's greatest strength -- its bullheaded insistence on story over ideology...a brave stand against the politics of hate..."
-Ana Menendez/ The Miami Herald

Blasting the screen with red-hot beats, intense musicality and sure-footed confidence, director Lisandro Pérez-Rey has crafted a slamming documentary about the talented hip-hop artists emerging from Cuba’s rising cultural vibrancy.

Two of Cuba’s leading hip-hop groups, Obsesion and Doble Filo, have formed the collective La Fabri-K in an effort to showcase their art and to raise political consciousness. Live musicianship is central to their art, showcasing a burgeoning hip-hop scene in which traditional percussion, guitar, violin, cello, sax and piano are layered under rhymes. In the documentary, La Fabri-K travels from run-down Cuban apartments to the legendary Apollo Theatre in Harlem to open for the Roots and Kanye West. Creating myth and poetry from music and politics, La Fabri-K hypnotizes the audience with the rhythm’s pull. The film demonstrates that hip-hop is a universal language, and the marginalized and oppressed will always find their voice.