About Cuba's Life Task: Combatting Climate Change
For this lay person, a film about climate change can create a stress response to nail bite given the inherent tension between the scope of the problem (for simplicity’s sake, let’s just call it “planet annihilation”) and the solution (usually a lofty, unenforceable or varied one – akin to getting a chorus of countries to sing from the same song sheet – with the resulting babel).
But a new documentary film shown during the recent COP26 international climate change conference in Glasgow produced by Dr. Helen Yaffe, a Lecturer in Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow and a long-time Cuba researcher, presents a cautiously hopeful perspective that highlights Cuba’s leadership on the subject in Cuba’s Life Task: Combatting Climate Change.
Packed with perspectives from leading Cuban experts and Cuban citizens, this 55 minute film walks the viewer through Cuba’s climate history – from Hurricane Flora in 1963 to Hurricane Irma in 2017 – and poses the question: “What can we do to prepare for the damaging effects of climate change?’ Turns out, Cuba’s done quite a bit already.
Dr. Helen Yaffe is a Senior Lecturer in Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow and a Visiting Fellow at the Latin America and Caribbean Centre at the London School of Economics. Since 1995, Dr. Helen Yaffe has spent time living and researching in Cuba. Her newest book, We Are Cuba! How a Revolutionary People Have Survived in a Post-Soviet World was published by Yale Press in 2020. She also co-produced Cuba & Covid-19: Public Health, Science and Solidarity, which was released in 2020. Cuba's Life Task: Combatting Climate Change premiered at COP26, and includes interviews with Cuban leadership, citizens, and more as Dr. Yaffe learns about Tarea Vida, the state plan for climate change, adaptation, and mitigation.
About Minnesota Cuban Film Festival
The 14th Minnesota Cuban Film Festival (MCFF) features films that address the achievements and challenges of the Cuban people through the eyes of its filmmakers. The festival highlights diverse and challenging films of social change, human struggle and the boldness of the human spirit. Every Wednesday at 7:00 PM, March 1-April 5, 2023