Cuban director Marcelo Martín's first feature-length documentary is actually a road movie that takes him - on a single-wagon train - from Morón to Punta Alegre in the province of Ciego de Ávila. Half-way through, he stops in Falla, where he spent summer vacations as a child. What remains from the memories of his youth amounts to a rude awakening. Martín pulls no punches yet is clearly endowed with a painterly eye, and his first-person chronicle of broken dreams, promises and lives is leavened by a vision as poetic as it is stark. By journey's end, you'll be hard-pressed to find much hope for the future. This handsome, independently produced Train features music by luminaries Santiago Feliú (just before he passed away) and López-Nussa brothers Harold and Ruy Adrián. It was lauded at the last Havana Film Festival and hailed at Huelva, in Spain, the leading showcase for Iberoamerican films. Its arrival could not be more timely as all eyes turn once again to the island dubbed "the Pearl of the Antilles." In the filmmaker's own words: "It's not by chance that we are born in one place and not another, but to bear witness." The Train On the Northern Railway bears witness to a forgotten Cuba.

Marcelo Martín will expand on the making of his film in a q&a conversation following the screening.