The Silly Age

From director Pavel Giroud comes a quirky yet fascinating coming-of-age film from Cuba. In 1950's Havana, in the moment before the Revolution, ten-year-old Samuel and his recently divorced mother arrive in town. They move into the home of his difficult and eccentric grandmother Violeta (Mercedes Sampietro, Queens and Unconscious). The Silly Age uses the melodrama genre to disclose family friction and fissures much as Douglas Sirk movies did in the Hollywood of the time. Here, striking new talent Giroud cleverly evokes the lifestyle in an ironic view of apparent discord in Cuban society before Castro by focusing on a small dysfunctional middle-class family. This was the first Cuban film presented to the Hollywood Oscars® in the 12 years since Strawberries and Chocolate.