Watching: Santa & Andres

Overview

Santa, a peasant woman loyal to the Revolution, is sent to guard Andrés, a gay writer who is under house arrest, considered “ untrustworthy” for his ideas and sexuality by the Cuban authorities. Set in a small village in eastern Cuba during the early 1980s, this poignant political drama depicts an encounter between two deeply thoughtful souls on opposite sides of a profound cultural divide. Both have experienced deep loss, and both know the damaging effects of isolation and oppression. Even so, the cavernous ideological divide separating them — the same one that has separated Cuban friends and kin for over 50 years — has until now seemed insurmountable.