Benjamin Murray will attend the screening
An apt metaphor for the history of the Cuban revolution itself, Unfinished Spaces is a stirring study of the euphoric creation and complex, unfortunate aftermath of an ambitious cultural project initiated in Havana in 1961.
In a sympathetic but unblinking manner, Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murray assemble this ambitious look at the birth and subsequent troubled life of Cuba’s National Art Schools, a complex on the edge of Havana seemingly conceived on a whim by Fidel Castro. Three young architects and ardent revolutionaries were given two months to plan five schools and to begin construction immediately thereafter. The creations of Roberto Gottardi, Ricardo Porro and Vittorio Garatti were stunning, at once both excitingly modernistic and redolent of old influences. World events quickly overtook the enterprise, however. Further construction was halted and the three architects were disenfranchised and worse.
The three old colleagues reunite to traverse their spectacular creation, ruminate on what became of their youthful dreams and contribute to the schools’ restoration. Lucidly filmed, Unfinished Spaces is an excellent example of the specific used to illustrate a wider truth, in this case about unfulfilled dreams, both artistic and political. - Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter