Latin American Film Festival: "The Companion"

Description

El acompañante (The Companion), directed by Pavel Giroud from Cuba and featuring Yotuel Romero, Armando Miguel Gómez, Camila Arteche, Yailene Sierra, Jazz Vilá, and Jorge Molina, is Cuba's official entry to the Academy Awards. The screening will be in Spanish with English subtitles.

Synopsis:

Set in 1988 Cuba as the government dispatched HIV patients to AIDS centers under military rule, The Companion narrates the unlikely friendship between a boxing champion and a conflictive patient. After failing a doping test, Horacio Romero has no other choice but to serve a sentence. His fate is in Los Cocos, a sanatorium under military rule where HIV patients are compulsorily confined, with the exception of a weekly pass to visit their families under the supervision of personal wardens called "companions." As a "companion," Horacio is supposed to keep an eye on Daniel—the most conflictive patient in the ward—and get him to comply to the regulations. Their interests immediately collide as Daniel is set to spend his last days in freedom and is ready to do anything to make this happen. Horacio, on the other hand, dreams about boxing again to get his champion's status back. For that to happen, however, he must first win this battle out of the ring.

The 2023 Latin American Film Festival is cosponsored by the Center for Advanced Media Studies and the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures.