Sons of Cuba by Andrew Lang

Sons of Cuba
Directed by Andrew Lang
UK, 2009
Cornerhouse, 18 April 2010

What this documentary does is follow three boys, all in their early teens, and all hoping to box for Cuba in the Olympics one day.

The boys are based at the Havana City Boxing Academy, a specialist boarding school, and we know that the head coach, Yosvani Bonachea, is itching to win the National Championships for his school.  They – Havana City – had finished second the previous year.

We are shown the boys’ home life as well as their life at the school.  It seems that all their parents are divorced, or live apart, and none of the boys – not even Cristian, son of the great boxer Luis Felipe Martínez – come from a well-to-do or privileged background.  At the school, training is hard and discipline is strict, though it is clear that the coach is a caring man.

There is something awful about this world: these are boys who must fight other boys for their place in the sun.  And by fight I mean fight: actually fight, literally fight, i.e. FIGHT.  And they must do this as their parents look on and there can only be one winner.  We see the burden of boys who must be men, when actually they are just boys.

A starkly beautiful yet inescapably brutal film for what it shows and reveals about these boys’ lives.