Guantanamo.- The film “Baracoa” premieres today at Havana’s Yara Cinema after a successful international festival run and strong public support. The screening will be attended by director Alberto Doñas, the producers, crew, and cast, the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) announced.

Doñas’s debut feature is a road dramedy about Felipe, an Italian revolutionary and friend of Fidel Castro, played by acclaimed Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini, and his son Pepe, portrayed by Carlos Luis González, who holds homophobic prejudices. After Felipe’s death, Pepe and doctor Jimmy (Yadier Fernández) travel from Havana to Cuba’s easternmost city, setting out on a journey that brings profound personal change.

It is a film about love, friendship, and uplifting feelings, Doñas told Prensa Latina, emphasizing that “the purity of emotion conveyed on screen is what, in a way, connects with audiences.”

The filmmaker also described the work as a “return to the source, to the first town founded, and to our Cuban identity.”

Baracoa is now touring Cuba after winning the Audience Award in the Official Competition and the Best Screenplay Award, written by Doñas and Filippo Ascione, at the 41st Ibero-Latin American Film Festival in Trieste, Italy.

At last year’s 46th Havana Film Festival, the film received the Súmate Diversity Award and a special mention from the Agrarian University of Havana. It also screened out of competition at the Taormina Film Festival and was presented at the Lucca Film Festival.

The film’s cinematography is by Lorenzo Casadio Vannucci, its original music by soprano Bárbara Llanes, and its editing by Francesco Galli. The cast also includes Italian actor Giovanni Giusto and Cuban actors Carlos Pérez Peña and Ana Gloria Buduén, among others.

A co-production of Pointmedia Italia SRL and De La Huerta Producciones, the film will open in Cuban theaters with screenings scheduled for 5 p.m. local time. The box office will open at 4 p.m.